Categorical Grant Funding

To amend the abysmal state of sex education in the United States, areas with lacking sexual education standards should look to states such as New Jersey, and adopt their requirements for school curricula. As established, certain states would resist this change due to popular conservative ideology or an inability to fund a new curriculum. To remedy this, we propose that the federal government give states who make efforts to expand upon their existing sex education categorical grants. This would incentivize unenthusiastic districts to implement changes, as well as allow lower-income schools to receive the same level of education as students from wealthier areas. In terms of funding, we suggest the grant money comes from an excise tax on luxury items, such as alcohol. As different schools have different needs, the amount allocated per school would vary on the size of the student body.

We do not believe that money should be a limiting factor that prevents one from receiving an education crucial to their development. Thus, this solution allows all districts the opportunity to fix their sexual education lessons without having to re-adjust their budget for other school activities. Money is a big motivator; we believe that this tax will motivate schools that were previously wary of comprehensive education to implement the changes, regardless of their initial opinion. If we encourage schools to make this switch, we will have fulfilled our goal of increasing the prevalence of comprehensive sex education in America. The people that will be in charge for funding in the federal government is the Department of Health and Human Services. They will be dealing with issuing our tax and collecting the money from the different retailers.

By adopting existing curricula from alternate states, districts are left with the freedom to fulfill the requirements. The level of support provided by the government would be solely through funding, leaving individual districts total control over how they teach the core curricular concepts. This would be popular with “small-government” supporters, who prefer the role of government in “state matters” to be as minimal as possible.