Most states leave the scope of sex education up to the local school boards.
Ms Kelly's Roman Catholicism has raised questions in some minds about her attitude towards sex education.
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Currently it is compulsory for all maintained schools to only teach the biological aspects of sex education.
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They had had some sex education in school, she said, but mostly, they just joked about sex.
He advocated sex education as a way of reducing the number of unintended pregnancies that result in abortions.
The arguments against single-sex education come primarily from civil-rights and women's groups who oppose publicly-funded segregation on principle.
The Sex Education Forum (SEF) says that the plans leave a gap in teaching about reproduction in primary school.
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Earlier this year, a sex education programme running in 150 schools in England was attacked for being too explicit.
The government has proposed that abortion should be addressed in sex education lessons.
Schools should consult with parents and consider their views when planning sex education.
For instance, I support sex education in schools and don't believe that we should leave that up to the parents.
Increased funding and support from the Bush administration means that more of America's young are denied medically accurate sex education.
The government is being urged to change the law so that sex education books in schools are vetted by film censors.
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And updated guidelines for sex education in schools in England, published on Monday, emphasised the importance of marriage and strong relationships.
In September the New York Civil Liberties Union published a study on sex education in schools in conservative upstate New York.
She believes passionately that relationships and sex education should be taught at an early age, and that it should be compulsory.
Students currently receive little formal sex education beyond advice to abstain, and have limited access to reproductive health counselling and services.
"If Section 28 is repealed, then outside of education narrowly defined as sex education, there will be no safeguards, " she warned.
Schools minister, Nick Gibb, said all sex education material used in state schools was scrutinised to ensure it set the "right tone".
BBC: Sex education books must be vetted for content, says MP
Members of Planned Parenthood say the measure will lead to the censorship of material about sex education, AIDS awareness, and abortion.
Sex education should be "revolutionised" to better prepare young people for "healthy, respectful, emotionally fulfilling relationships" and deal with issues of self-esteem.
Sex education has a long controversial history in the United States.
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In China, unwanted pregnancies have been on the rise because of a lack of sex education and an increasingly lax attitude toward sex.
Planned Parenthood is often invited in to do comprehensive sex education, and so is Let's Talk, a program that advocates abstinence until marriage.
The McCain campaign is running an ad about attacking Barack Obama's education record, saying that he was for comprehensive sex education for kindergartners.
Rosenbaum is concerned that abstinence-only sex education programs that promote virginity pledges may also promote a negative view of condoms and birth control.
Sex education is considered taboo in many families and only a handful of schools have courses on reproductive health on their curriculum, he says.
The fact that children talked about sex among themselves, Ms Holland said, was a powerful argument in favour of effective and accurate sex education.
Sex education also needs to be an integrated part of the national curriculum in every school not just an optional extra for interested schools.
It has become a whole generation's sex education and could be the same for the next they are fumbling around online, not in the back seat.
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