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Robot Babies Not Effective Birth Control, Australian Study Finds (sky.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Girls given imitation babies to look after in an effort to deter teenage pregnancy could actually be more likely to get pregnant, according to a study. Researchers in Australia found 8% of girls who used the dolls were expecting by the age of 20, compared with 4% of those who did not. The number of girls having at least one abortion was also higher among girls given the dolls: 9% compared to 6%. 'Baby Think It Over' dolls were used in a Virtual Infant Parenting (VIP) programme which began in 57 schools in Western Australia in 2003. During the three-year study, published in The Lancet, 1267 girls aged 13 to 15 used the simulators -- which need to be fed and changed, while 1567 learned the normal health curriculum. The idea originated in the United States and is used in 89 countries. Researchers from the Telethon Kids Institute in Western Australia are now warning that such programmes may be a waste of public money.
The idea of focus on Reading, Writing, and Math is an over-simplistic ideal that reflects a conservative attitude of counter-reaction to the more recent achievements of progressive social methods by creating a false ideal of the past to which they appeal.
It is about as genuine as references to Roman virtues or Japanese divinity. You just want to point to some simple and easy solution that if only it were done, everything would work out just peachy. The lazy ten-word solution doesn't actually work though. It just sounds good.
In reality, schools need to teach a relatively broad curriculum, the US Department of Education is not running the local curriculum, the Texas School Book Commission has too much influence, and the biggest waste of education dollars is either foot ball or the standardized testing paradigm.