Abstinence Education Under Welfare Reform
Ron Haskins and Carol Statuto Bevan
Abstract
As part of its 1996 welfare reform bill, Congress enacted
a $50 million per year program to fund abstinence education. This chapter
provides an examination of the legislative history of the program; a discussion
of the characteristics of the program, especially the definition of abstinence
education; and an account of how the program will be implemented by the
federal government and the states.
Introduction
The welfare reform bill signed into law by President Clinton
on August 22 contained a provision that received little attention during
congressional debate. This provision, found in the miscellaneous title
of the legislation (Title IX), provides states with $50 million per year
in entitlement funding beginning October 1, 7997, to conduct abstinence
education. The purpose of this paper is to review the legislative background
of the abstinence education provision, discuss congressional intent in
drafting the provision, and to speculate about the initial stages of its
implementation.
Legislative Background
Every version of the Republican welfare reform bill contained
many provisions designed to reduce illegitimacy (see appendix
A for a list of the provisions included in the final legislation).
The decision by Congress to launch and explicit attack on illegitimacy
makes an interesting story.
During congressional debate, opponents of the welfare
reform bill argued that the emphasis on nonmarital births was misplaced
because there was no evidence that government policy could have an impact
on illegitimacy. On this count the opponents may be right, although the
literature on the correlation between welfare benefits and illegitimacy
rates contains a number of first-rate studies that link welfare benefits
with illegitimacy (Rosenzweig, 1996; Lundberg & Plotnick, 1990; Murray,
1993; Fossett & Kiecolt, 1993). Moreover, since the passage of the
welfare reform bill, a study has appeared in the highly regarded journal
The Public Interest (Goertzel & Young, 1996) on the impact of
the family cap (the policy of providing no more additional money for families
on welfare that have additional children) in New Jersey. According to the
authors of the New Jersey study, the combination of public debate on the
irresponsibility of single mother already on welfare having babies, led
by a prominent black politician, and the initiation of the family cap policy
was associated with a 4% reduction in two years in the number of births
to mothers on welfare, an 8.5% decline in the states ten largest cities,
and a 21% decline in Camden, the most welfare-dependent city in the state.
During the same period, total births in the state declined just 2 percent.
If this study holds up, it would constitute strong evidence that the combination
of bully pulpit and policy consequences effect nonmarital birthrates.
Regardless of ones views on the strength of evidence
linking welfare with illegitimacy, there is little direct evidence, beyond
the New Jersey study just cited, that any particular policy or program
reduces the frequency of nonmarital births. Even so, recent history contains
many examples of federal policies, including highly controversial and expensive
policies, that enjoyed little empirical support at the time of introduction.
Congress passed strong civil rights legislation in 1965, for example. despite
the lack of evidence that outlawing discrimination based on race would
be effective. Similarly, both government policy and public discourse on
the evils of smoking were based far more on hope than evidence that the
warnings would actually reduce smoking. Nor was there good empirical evidence
linking preschool programs with school achievement when Head Start was
launched in 1965. Although the federal government has now spent more than
$30 billion on Head Start, we still lack solid empirical evidence that
the program produces long-term effects on childrens development (Haskins,
1989).
What all these cases have in common is that public policy
was based primarily on the judgment that the nation faced a serious social
problem and strong action was therefore justified, never mind the lack
of solid evidence that the action would produce substantial results. Similarly,
the congressional attack on illegitimacy is based far more on the value
position that sex outside marriage is wrong and the consequences sever
for mother, child , and society than on empirical evidence linking a particular
policy with reduced nonmarital births.
Based on this reasoning, the new welfare reform law contains
several different lines of attack on illegitimacy. First, state flexibility
encouraged by the block grant structure of the legislation permits states
to employ the family cap, to stop paying cash to teen mothers who are not
married, and to employ a host of other initiatives tailored to reducing
illegitimacy. The policy of stopping cash payments to unmarried teens received
majority support in the House of Representatives during the welfare debate
but was rejected by a lopsided floor vote in the Senate. Thus, states are
not required to end cash payments to unmarried teen mothers, but they are
allowed to do so. Several states probably will begin this policy within
the next year. The family cap is already policy in approximately half the
states; other states are expected to adopt the policy in the future.
The legislation also requires the secretary of Health
and Human Services to rank the states according to their nonmarital birth
ratios and changes in these ratios over time. The secretary must review
and write an annual report on the five highest- and five lowest-ranking
states. This provision is intended to draw public attention both to states
that are successful in controlling their illegitimacy ratios and to states
that are not successful.. Hopefully, the secretarys reports will publicize
the policies of lack of policies associates with declining and with increasing
illegitimacy ratios.
Although intended primarily to raise child support payments,
the legislation also increases the pressure on noncustodial parents to
pay child support. The entire enterprise of state enforcement of child
support is another approach to reducing nonmarital births. Many observers
believe that allowing young men to father children without regard to whether
they can support them is an invitation to irresponsible behavior. If child
support enforcement becomes so effective that young fathers realize they
will wind up paying child support for at least 18 years or face serious
consequences, they may be less likely to engage in premarital sexual activity.
The legislation also contains two provisions that give
states financial incentives to reduce nonmarital births. Under one provision,
states that reduce the proportion of births occurring outside marriage
while also reducing their abortion rates receive a cash bonus of either
$20 million or $25 million, depending on the number of states that meet
these two criteria. Under the other provision, states can qualify for performance
bonuses totaling $1 billion over five years if they excel at meeting the
goals of the new block grant program. One of the four goals is the reduction
of illegitimacy rates.
Finally, the legislation creates the abstinence education
grant of $50 million per year that is the subject matter of this paper.
We now explore why Congress included this provision.
The Legislative Provision on Abstinence
The individuals and groups trying to reduce teen premarital
sexual activity and births fall roughly into two camps. The first--we will
call them the Donts--holds that programs must give teens a single, unambiguous
message that sex outside marriage is wrong and harmful to their physical
and mental health. The second group--we will call the "Maybes"--also generally
agrees that programs should aim to prevent early sex. Even so, this group
believes that it is impractical, or even harmful, to "just say no." More
specifically, the Maybes want to tell teens that they should not have sex,
but if they do, they should practice "safe sex." Perhaps a majority of
Maybes would, in addition to teaching abstinence, teach use of birth control
and promote access to condoms and other birth control devices. By contrast,
the Donts believe that supporting both abstinence and birth control is
hypocritical and undermines the forcefulness of a pure abstinence message.
The authors of the abstinence provision in the welfare
reform bill were clearly Donts. The explicit intent of the legislation
is to promote programs that feature the unambiguous message that sex outside
marriage is wrong. Moreover, because the Donts were concerned that their
program might be captured or watered down by the Maybes, they spelled out
the specific characteristics of programs that could be funded by the legislation
in unusual detail (see appendix B).
Every program funded by the provision must:
-
have as its "exclusive purpose" teaching the social, psychological,
and health gains to be realized by abstaining from sexual activity
-
teach that abstinence from sexual activity outside marriage
is the expected standard for all school aged children
-
teach that abstinence from sexual activity is the only certain
way to avoid illegitimate births and sexually transmitted diseases
-
teach that a mutually faithful monogamous relationship in
the context of marriage is the expected standard of human sexual activity
-
teach that sexual activity outside the context of marriage
is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects
-
teach that bearing children illegitimately is likely to have
harmful consequences for the child, the childs parents, and society
-
teach young people how to reject sexual advances and how
alcohol and drug use increase vulnerability to sexual advances
-
teach the importance of attaining self-sufficiency before
engaging in sexual activity
The provision was introduced in the Senate on September 8,
1995 by Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) for Senator Lauch Faircloth (R-NC).
Our discussions with a number of people involved in writing the initial
legislation indicate that several family groups, led by Robert Rector of
the Heritage Foundation, approached Senator Faircloth about the importance
of abstinence education. Senator Faircloth was interested in drafting legislation
to promote abstinence education and directed his staff to work with the
family groups in developing the specific legislative language.
One the legislation had been passed in the Senate, groups
representing Maybes attempted to get Senator Faircloth to drop the language
requiring eligible programs to have abstinence education as their "exclusive
purpose." At one point during the House-Senate conference in December of
1995, conferees were contemplating dropping the "exclusive purpose" language
and thereby allowing programs that combine the abstinence message with
advice about birth control, or perhaps actual distribution of birth control
devices, to participate in the program. After extensive discussion, and
with strong encouragement from Representative Jim Talent (R-MO), Republican
conferees decided to retain the original language. The major arguments
on behalf of the original language were that previous abstinence programs
had been unacceptable to the medical and especially public health communities
and therefore were either poorly funded or included information about birth
control, thereby undermining the abstinence message. Moreover, conferees
noted that federal law already contains several programs (Title X Family
Planning of the Public Health Service Act, Medicaid, and Title XX Adolescent
Family Life Demonstrations of the Public Health Service Act) that emphasize
the abstinence plus message favored by the Maybes.
Democratic conferees made no formal attempt to change
the language of the provision during the House-Senate conference that began
in May of 1996. The final language was very similar to the original language
and the law as passed is entirely consistent with the position taken by
the Donts. The only major change in the legislation during the House-Senate
conference was that the funding was changed from authorization language
to entitlement language. The practical import of this change is that, unless
the appropriations committees rescind the entitlement language, the provision
will receive automatic funding each year without submission to the appropriation
process.
Implementation
Predicting in advance how this provision will be implemented
is risky at best. Nevertheless, given the potential importance of abstinence
education in reducing the nations epidemic of nonmarital births and the
need for groups hoping to apply for the money to have at least a tentative
idea of how the program may be implemented, we have put together a somewhat
speculative account of how the program will probably begin.
Largely because the authors of the provision wanted it
to be part of an established program to take advantage of existing procedures
for distributing money, the program was written as part of the Maternal
and Child Health Services Block Grant (Title V of the Social Security Act).
The Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Bureau in the Department of Health
and Human Services administers this program. Under the basic MCH program,
each state is allocated a specific amount of money by formula within the
annual appropriation (the authorization level is $705 million; the fiscal
year 1997 appropriation is $681 million). To obtain the money, states submit
an application to the federal MCH Bureau describing the activities they
will pursue to promote maternal and child health. At least 30% of each
states money must be spent on children with special health needs and 30%
must be spent on preventive and primary care services for children; not
more than 10% of the money can be spent on administration. States must
match federal dollars with $3 in state, local, or private resources for
every $4 provided by the federal government.
Once states receive their share of the funds, they allocate
the money to counties that in turn pass most of the money through to local
health departments where the funds are actually spent on maternal and child
health activities.
The $50 million for abstinence education is separate from
the $705 million authorized for the MCH block grant. Table 1 presents the
annual allocation of the $50 million among the states and territories.
Event though the abstinence education funds are separate from the regular
MCH block grant, the program will be administered at the federal level
by the same agency that administers the MCH block grant. As we shall see,
however, states may have substantial flexibility in deciding how to administer
the program.
---------
Table 1
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To plan for implementation of the program, officials at
the federal MCH Bureau convened a working group on abstinence education
early in November, 1996. The working group comprised federal, state, and
regional MCH staff, as well as representatives of MCH associations. Based
on this collaborative effort, plus consultations with the Commerce Committee
(the committee of jurisdiction in the House of Representatives), MCH circulated
a draft "administrative guidance" to the states in late February 1997.
This set of guidelines provoked a sharp dispute between
MCH and the Commerce Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives. The
draft guidelines issued by MCH stated that grant applications would be
accepted "only from the State Health Agency." The authors of the legislation,
by contrast, had deliberately omitted from the statue the requirement that
funds be administered through the MCH bureaucracy, thereby leaving to states
all decisions about who can apply for funds and who can decide how the
money is distributed. To use the precise language of the Congressional
Research Services legal opinion cited above, these decisions are the province
of "state laws, constitutional provisions, and judicial precedents."
The Chairman of the Commerce Committee, along with the
Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee who had been directly involved
in drafting the statute, felt so strongly about this issue that they sent
a joint letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala pointing
out that the administrative guidance was inconsistent with the intent of
Congress because it directly violated the provision that states control
the distribution of abstinence education funds. As this book goes to press,
the dispute between Congress and the Administration remains unresolved.
The guidelines will provide states with information on
how to apply for the abstinence education money, what qualifies as abstinence
education, how much money each state is eligible to receive, what constitutes
match money, and how and when states must submit their proposals. After
the guidelines are issued, responsibility for devising and submitting a
plan for spending the money falls to states. Once MCH approves the state
plan, states can begin funding appropriate activities that begin on October
1, 1997.
Based on discussions with Donts and Maybes both sides
inside and outside government, it is clear to us how states handle abstinence
education money will be an important determinant of whether Congressional
intent is fulfilled. Many state MCH officials are likely to have bigger
issues to worry about than abstinence education. Thus, particularly in
states with fairly small abstinence education allotments (21 states receive
less than $500,000 per year; see table 1), MCH officials may use the money
for fairly modest activities such as conducting a conference on abstinence
education.
Having participated in the Congressional development of
the abstinence education provision, however, we believe state governments
are obligated by the new law to take aggressive action to create abstinence
education programs. Although Congress leaves most of the precise steps
of implementation up to the administrative branch of government, at least
five actions by states seem appropriate. First, states should make a substantial
effort to publicize the availability of the abstinence education funds.
Local departments of health, YWCAs and YMCAs, agricultural extension programs,
hospitals, universities, public school systems, religious groups, nonprofit
community-based groups, independent contractors, and Boy Scout and Girl
Scout organizations should all be contacted about the availability of the
money. Second, states should issue clear instructions and timelines about
what these organizations must do to qualify for the money. Third, to the
extent feasible, states should provide some assistance in proposal development
to groups that want to apply for funding. Fourth, state governments must
make clear to potential applicants that only proposals that meet the terms
of the legislation, especially the definition of abstinence education,
will be considered. Fifth, all these activities should be conducted in
a manner that provides potential applicants with adequate time to write
and submit their proposals. Selections should be made in time to give projects
two or three months to prepare for the actual initiation of their abstinence
education activities.
Even if state offices make a good faith effort to implement
congressional intent, we believe three potential obstacles could interfere
with successful implementation. The first impediment is the match requirement
of $3 in state funds for every $4 in federal funds. As in all cases in
which federal legislation requires matching funds, a desirable result of
the match is that more resources are available to conduct the program.
Either the states themselves or the organizations conducting the programs,
however, must figure out a way to obtain the matching funds. Several of
our informants were concerned that states or individual projects would
have difficulty obtaining funds to meet the match requirement. In this
regard, state officials and potential applicants could begin exploring
the possibility of obtaining resources with states legislators, state administrators
with budget authority, foundations, school systems, and other potential
donors. Fortunately, the matching requirement allows the use of in-kind
resources such as facilities and volunteer time. The use of in-kind resources
will allow state and local projects to meet the matching requirement without
having to raise extensive cash.
The second concern is that several of the state officials
and others with whom we spoke believe the detailed definition of abstinence
education is too restrictive. In their view, few projects will be able
to implement faithfully all components of the definition (see the list
above and section (b)(2) of the legislation in appendix B). One element
of the definition came in for especially strong criticism: namely, the
requirement that abstinence programs teach "that a mutually faithful monogamous
relationship in context of marriage is the expected standard of human sexual
activity." Many professionals appear to believe that convincing adolescents
to refrain from sex during the school years will be difficult enough. Convincing
them to wait until marriage, which now occurs at age 27 for males and 25
for females on average,, seems so far removed from current practices (and
perhaps even standards) that abstinence education programs would have a
better chance of success if they concentrate on the school years.
Regardless of how one feels about the standard of no sex
outside marriage, we believe both the statutory language and, based on
our talks with the Members of Congress who wrote this provision and their
staffs, the intent of Congress are clear. This standard was intended to
align Congress with the social tradition--never mind that some observers
now think the tradition outdated--that sex should be confined o married
couples. That both the practices and standards in many communities across
the country clash with the standard required by the law is precisely the
point. As in the cases of civil rights and smoking, the explicit goal of
the abstinence education programs is to change both behavior and community
standards for the good of the country. It follows that no program that
in any way endorses, supports, or encourages sex outside marriage can receive
support from the abstinence education money. Officials at the federal MCH
Bureau, state officials administering the program, and those conducting
local abstinence education programs have the legal responsibility to ensure
that none of the money from this grant supports projects that violate this
standard.
Nonetheless, it may be possible to live with this aspect
of the definition without great difficulty. Projects funded by the new
abstinence money certainly do not need to place equal emphasis on every
component of the definition. In our view, projects that do not violate
any aspect of the definition and that emphasize abstinence as the expected
standard for children and teenagers (which is an actual requirement stated
in subparagraph (B) of the definition in the legislation) are eligible
for funding. As long as the specific curriculum and teaching of the project
do not violate the abstinent until marriage standard, the project should
qualify for funds.
Consider an example. Assume that a given public school
system now conducts a one-year sex education class for 10th graders. During
the course of the year, the class curriculum calls for presentation about
birth control, including instruction in the use of various birth control
devices. Now assume that the school officials decide that they would like
to revise the course to include a six-week unit that exactly follows the
definition of the abstinence education outlined in the new statute. Can
state officials use abstinence education dollars to fund this unit of instruction
even though other parts of the course teach birth control?
We believe it would be illegal to fund this project under
the abstinence education statute. The language clearly states that abstinence
education is a program with the "exclusive purpose" of teaching the various
principles outlined earlier. If this unit is part of a course that teaches
use of birth control, then it violates the "exclusive purpose" criterion.
This example, of course, is less than definitive. The
"exclusive purpose" criterion is clear enough, but a lack of clarity is
introduced by the carious possible meanings of the term program. The school
example illustrates that a set of abstinence activities within the broader
context of a single program that includes teachings that violate the abstinence
definition is not acceptable. But how far away from activities that cannot
be supported by the grant must a program be to qualify legally for funding?
Realizing that a definitive clarification will be nearly
impossible to achieve, we nonetheless assume that the MCH guidelines will
deal with this question as clearly as possible. T o err on the side of
caution, however, programs that qualify as abstinence education should
be conducted by different people at a time different and with materials
separate from programs that violate any tenet of the statutory definition
of abstinence education. In addition to meeting these conditions, state
officials must ensure that the people who plan and conduct the program
are making a sincere attempt to create activities consistent with the statutory
definition of abstinence education. Thus, program operators must make serious
efforts to convince students that sexual activity can cause a host of diseases,
that only abstinence is certain to prevent pregnancy, that abstinence is
the correct standard for school age children, that nonmarital births to
teens have harmful consequences for both mother and child, and so forth.
The third obstacle to successful implementation is the
split between the Donts and the Maybes. From the perspective of the Donts,
the federal programs that currently provide funds for sex education, birth
control, and even abstinence education are dominated by the Maybes. As
a result, the Donts hold that real abstinence education, by which they
mean abstinence education that does not dilute the abstinence message by
including instruction on birth control, has rarely been supported by federal
dollars. Congressional intent in funding this new program was not to disrupt
any ongoing programs, including those that feature birth control instruction
or distribution. Rather, Congress wanted to ensure that some federal dollars
were used exclusively to support true abstinence education programs.
Our discussions with advocacy groups supporting abstinence
education, especially at the state and local level, have revealed a widespread
belief among the Donts that the MCH system in many states is dominated
by Maybes. As the head of a small abstinence organization in a Western
state told us during a recent phone conversation, as long as the state
MCH bureaucracy has control of the abstinence money, small community-based
organizations that promote abstinence will not be competing on a level
playing field. This program director and many others like him believe that
state MCH programs will either keep the money within the MCH system, particularly
within the local public health departments, or award competitive grants
to organizations dominated by Maybes.
We have no way of knowing the extent to which this claim
is correct. A comment about the intent of Congress in establishing the
abstinence education grant program, however, seems pertinent to this concern.
Congress specified that the funds are to go to "a state"; however, Congress
did not specify the exact roles of the executive or the legislative branches
of state government, nor did Congress specify a particular branch or unit
within state government--not even the MCH branch that normally controls
Title V funds--that must control the abstinence funds. Rather, the statute
leaves these decisions primarily up to states. By contrast, in the case
of both the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Block Grant and the
Child Care and Development Block Grant, Congress and the Child Care and
Development Block Grant, Congress was very careful to spell out (in section
901) that federal dollars were subject to appropriation by the state legislature.
After consulting lawyers in the Congressional Research
Service, we believe these facts about the federal abstinence education
statute indicate that state laws, constitutional provisions, and judicial
precedents will determine which branch of state government and which agencies
within branches control decisions regarding the abstinence education funds.
If state legislatures want to assert their authority by demanding a voice
in how the abstinence education money is used, in most states they will
be able to exert substantial influence.
Given the relatively small amount of money received by
most states and the tradition that governors have major control over block
grant funds, however, it seems unlikely that most state legislatures will
pay much attention to this money. rather, in most states, it seems safe
to predict that the executive branch will make the major decisions about
how the funds are to be allocated.
Similarly, unless governors or other senior state officials
are subject to organized lobbying efforts, the abstinence education funds
will likely come to the state MCH organization as part of the MCH Block
Grant, the state MCH agency will in turn probably pass the money along
to county public health departments, and that the county public health
departments will decide how the money is to be spent. There is, however,
nothing inevitable about this process for distributing abstinence education.
Certainly there is nothing in the federal statute that requires states
to distribute the money in this way.
Consider an example. Assume that in some state an organization
of churches and faith-based groups is already involved in activities that
emphasize the importance of abstinence among youth. Suppose further that
the leaders of this organization have enough political clout to get the
attention of the governor or senior officials in the governors administration.
If the leaders use their influence to argue that the abstinence education
money would have more impact if the governor appointed an advisory board
to emphasize the availability of the funds, to solicit applications aggressively,
and then to advise the administration about which organizations should
receive the money, the normal decision-making procedures of the state MCH
bureaucracy could probably be changed. The point is that in most cases
governors will have effective control over the abstinence education money
and therefore can, within the boundaries established by custom, reason,
and state law, distribute the funds in whatever fashion they determine
will produce the best results.
Regardless of how states choose to distribute the abstinence
education money, it is appropriate to conclude this somewhat speculative
account with a certainty: the funds can only be spent on activities that
meet the detailed definition of abstinence education laid out so carefully
in the federal statute.
References
Fossett, M.A., & Kiecolt, K.J. (1993). Mate availability
and family structure among African-Americans in U.S. metropolitan areas.
Journal of Marriage and the Family, 55, pp. 288-302.
Goertzel, T.G., & Young, G.S. (1996, Fall). New Jerseys
Experiment in Welfare Reform. Public Interest, 125, pp. 72-80.
Haskins, R. (1989). Beyond Metaphor: The Efficacy of Early
Childhood Education. American Psychologist, 44(2), pp. 274-282.
Lundberg, S. & Plotnick, R.D. (1990, September). Adolescent
premarital childbearing: Do Opportunity Costs Matter? (Discussion
Paper No. 929-90). Madison, WI: Institute for Research on Poverty.
Murray, C. (1993). Welfare and the Family: The U.S. Experience.
Journal of Labor Economics, 11(1&2), pp. S24-S262.
Rosenzweig, M.R. (1996, April 11). Welfare, Marital
Prospects, and Nonmarital Childbearing. Paper presented at the Workshop
on Welfare and Child Development at the National Academy of Sciences, Washington,
D.C.
Go To: Appendix
A
Appendix B
Table 1
Abstinence Education Agenda