SD Takes Gov't Handouts for Failed Abstinence Ed Programs

Want to see a state with a welfare mentality? See South Dakota. We'll take any government handouts we can get our hands on... even when the handouts have been proven not to work. Case in point: abstinence education. We are taking $102,000 to tell kids that sex before marriage will mess them up phhysically and psychologically.

Now we shouldn't single out South Dakota: we are just one of 28 states slurping at the trough of federal money to keep the Unruhs in business. But two of those states, Arizona and Iowa, are turning down the money next year, joining a 40% decline in participation in the federal program.

What? Turn down federal money? Why on earth...

Well, Iowa Governor Chet Culver, a Democrat, says the federal program attempts to supplant the knowledge and authority of local teachers who actually know the kids and what will get through to them best. (Again, that's a Democrat talking local control.)

Idaho bailed out last year when the funding proved too unpredictable to budget. Idaho also saw the mounting evidence that abstinence-only education doesn't work. Case in point: Idaho's own rising teen pregnancy rate.

But in South Dakota and 25 other states, wasted federal money is apparently better than no federal money. $102,000 -- don't spend it all in one place!