Ohio school districts refuse to teach that children benefit more from two-parent households
Breccan F. Thies
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Two school districts in Ohio failed to teach students that two-parent households offer children greater potential for success than single-parent households, as required by Ohio law.
Ridgewood Local and Washington Local school districts were openly “non-compliant” with the law, becoming the only two out of over 600 districts to take issue with the teaching, according to a state Department of Education audit.
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Ohio law requires schools to teach about certain family dynamics as part of their sexual education instruction, including that having children out of wedlock is harmful to the children, the parents, and society.
“Children raised in broken homes or without fathers all perform much worse across every measurable outcome than their peers raised in intact families,” American Principles Project President Terry Schilling told the Washington Examiner. “They have higher rates of crime, suicide, and drug use, and they have lower educational attainment and economic mobility.”
The law also requires schools to teach abstinence, the “potential physical, psychological, emotional and social side effects of participating in sexual activity outside of marriage,” and emphasize adoption in cases of unintended pregnancies.
Both school districts gave explanations for their noncompliance with the state, stating that they refused to teach one or more of the concepts because they disagree with the state’s approach to the topics. There is no consequence for not complying.
Washington Local School District Superintendent Kandee Anstadt interpreted the curriculum as telling children of single-parent homes they will not be successful, as opposed to the curriculum representing an accurate conclusion drawn from a large body of research, as the Washington Examiner has reported.
“All kids can be successful, regardless of the kinds of families they come from, and our kids come from all kinds of families,” Anstadt said, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer. “We cannot be sitting in judgment of what people’s families look like, and I’m certainly not going to put that in curriculum.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 42.6% of children in Ohio are born to parents who are not married, and about 36% live in single-parent households, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
The AECF, which studies childhood wellbeing, also notes that “compared to kids in married-parent households, children in single-parent families are more likely to experience poor outcomes.”
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The Institute for Family Studies has also highlighted the different outcomes and experiences of children from single-parent versus two-parent households, observing stark contrasts in the likelihood of children to commit crimes, have adverse mental health outcomes, live in public housing, and secure financial, educational, and social achievements throughout life based on their family structure.
“Consider the hypocrisy of the activists in our schools who refuse to teach the importance of family, but have no problem teaching kids that they are evil if they are white and oppressed if they aren’t,” Schilling said. “They teach that our immutable traits condemn us to being oppressed or the oppressors, but that the things we can choose — to be good mothers, fathers, husbands, and wives — that this has no bearing on our outcomes.”