Health class.

I don’t know about you, but those two words bring me back to scenes of an overcrowded classroom as a teacher leads discussions on exercise, drugs and–of course–sex.

According to the National Conference on State Legislatures, 22 states require public schools to teach sex education.

However, a study published in February 2013 by the Centers for Disease Control reports there are a total of 110 million sexually transmitted infections (STI’s) among men and women across the nation.

With an estimated U.S. population of 313 million people as reported by the U.S. Census Bureau, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that approximately one third of Americans have an STI.

Looking at these statistics, it is clear that either there were a lot of people sleeping through health class or something more needs to be done. However, school districts are limited by overprotective attitudes whenever expansion of sex education is considered.

“There is a misunderstanding that if we don’t tell [kids] about sex, then they won’t do it,” said Gaylen Kapperman, a professor in the Department of Special and Early Education said. “They are doing them a major disservice.”

And that is where the controversy comes in.

But controversy doesn’t scare Kapperman. As the coordinator of the visual disabilities program, Kapperman does research on sex education and on sex education for children with vision impairments. Because proper sex education for this population requires things such as tactile modeling, it is even more controversial.

But even for general sex ed, I believe that controversy is the number one cause for inadequate sex education programs.

School districts afraid of lawsuits and bad publicity are cautious when it comes to expansion of sex ed programs, when expansion is really what is needed.

Parents’ rights are first and foremost, and if a legal guardian prefers not to expose their child to sex education then so be it. However, for those students who have parental consent, there is no reason we shouldn’t properly educate them.

Some school districts are getting the idea. According to Lauren FitzPatrick for the Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Public Schools are rolling out a new sex education program which is scheduled to take effect in fall 2014. Students as young as 5 will learn about their bodies and ideas such as “good touch” and “bad touch.” As students get older they will learn about safe contraceptives and learn abstinence as an accepted norm.

So Chicago gets the idea, but what about the rest of the nation?

Well, as the world changes, my prediction is that programs similar to Chicago’s will start popping up around the country.

I hope attitudes resisting adequate sex education will dissolve. For now, all we can do is acknowledge statistics like those I cited as unacceptable and hope the school districts listen.

After all, we live in a country that believes education is the best defense, and whether you like it or not, the same applies to sex.