Metro East Sun

Jennifer Korte, the Republican candidate for Illinois House District 112, recently shared her thoughts on the new school sex education curriculum.

According to a press release, in August 2021, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signed SB 818 into law, requiring all schools K-12 that teach sexual education to align their curriculum with certain standards.

"Modernizing our sex education standards will help keep our children safe and ensure important lessons, like consent and internet safety, are taught in classrooms," Pritzker said.

The new sex education curriculum will be based on the National Sex Education Standards. This includes teaching students in grades K-2 to define gender and gender identity, as well as gender-role stereotypes, and teaching the students the medically accurate names for body parts, including genitals, Breakthrough Ideas reports. 

Students in grades 3-5 will learn about masturbation; hormonal development and the role of hormone blockers; the differences between cisgender, transgender and gender nonbinary; and the difference between sexual orientation and gender identity. Students in grades 6-8 will learn to define oral sex, anal sex and vaginal sex, and are instructed to identify at least four methods of contraception that are available without a prescription, such as condoms and emergency contraception. 

High school students will learn about "reproductive justice," as well as how to differentiate between sex assigned at birth, gender identity and gender expression.

Korte told Metro East Sun that she opposes this controversial legislation. 

"This kind of heavy-handedness goes against what parents want from their schools. They want to have a say in the kind of curriculum their kids are learning. Instead, Katie Stuart and the Democrats pushed through this radical legislation and gave schools an ultimatum – they will either teach this radical curriculum or nothing at all. Schools need to focus on the essentials. It is not the job of schools to teach such explicit sexual material to children," Korte said.

"This bill passed the House with just 60 votes, the bare minimum required to pass a bill. My opponent, Katie Stuart, was the 60th vote. Thanks to her radical views, Illinois schools have to either comply with the outrageous sexualized content found in the National Sex Education standards or they have to opt-out and not teach any sex education at all," she said.

Korte adds that she has not heard of any support for SB 818 from community members and thinks that school districts should choose to opt-out of the new sex education curriculum.

"It is a false choice, but schools should opt-out. The alternative is they teach explicit material," she said. 

According to test scores from the most recent Illinois Assessment of Readiness, less than 20% of Chicago third graders can read or do math at grade-level proficiency, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.

Statewide, 38% of students read at grade level, according to Wirepoints.