New York City schools to make sex education mandatory

New York City public schools will teach mandatory sex education classes to all middle- and high school students, part of a citywide initiative to help reduce teenage pregnancies, officials said on Wednesday.

The required classes, the first mandated sex education in nearly two decades, will be taught to children as young as 11 years old and tackle such topics as the proper use of condoms and ways to resist unwelcome sexual advances.

Public schools will be required to teach a semester of sex education to sixth or seventh grade classes and again to ninth and tenth graders, Chancellor Dennis Walcott said in a letter announcing the plans.

The move is part of an effort by the administration of Mayor Michael Bloomberg to improve the lives of black and Latino students who are disproportionately undereducated and unemployed, and far more likely to have unplanned pregnancies, according to city officials.

Research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has shown that 41 percent of New York City youth said they were sexually active by 9th grade and 58 percent by 12th grade.

"We must be committed to ensuring that both middle school and high school students are exposed to this valuable information so they can learn to keep themselves safe before, and when, they decide to have sex," Walcott said.

Opposition from conservative groups and some school board members defeated a city mandate approved in the 1980s for a sex-education curriculum.

Separately, in 1987, New York state mandated an HIV/AIDS curriculum in every school from kindergarten through 12th grade which is still in effect.

New York state also requires middle and high school students take one semester of health education classes. But some schools do not include sex education in health classes.

"While many of our schools have already voluntarily taken steps to include sex education in their curriculum, some have not, leaving us with an uneven system that I believe does not serve our students well," Walcott said.

Walcott said parents can choose to take their children out of classes on birth-control methods if they want.

The New York Civil Liberties Union praised the plans, saying in a statement: "There is a consensus among public health experts and the public that age-appropriate, medically accurate comprehensive sex education is essential for providing teens with the tools to become healthy adults."

S&P lowers U.S. credit rating

The bond rating agency Standard & Poor's Friday downgraded U.S. debt from its current triple-A rate to AA+, a move an administration official called "amateur."

Citing government officials it did not identify, ABC had reported earlier Friday the administration was preparing for such a move.

S&P said the downgrade reflects its opinion that the debt reduction plan Congress enacted "falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government's medium-term debt dynamics."

"The effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges," S&P said in announcing its decision.

One federal official told ABC News the downgrade would be based in part on confusion associated with the way Congress handled legislation to raise the limit on federal borrowing and a lack of confidence that further deficit reduction can be achieved under the current U.S. political system.

Citing another source it did not identify, ABC said another reason for the move was be the Republicans' refusal to allow a deficit reduction deal to include new revenues.

However, another government official said the White House had told S&P the company's thinking was "based on flawed math and assumptions." And S&P acknowledged "its numbers are wrong."

An administration official told NBC News after the credit rating was lowered, "It's amateur hour at S&P."

Treasury Department officials said the S&P announcement came after Treasury pointed out the rating agency, in a draft of its downgrade announcement, overstated U.S. debt by incorrectly adding $2 trillion to its projection of the debt, The New York Times reported.

The effect of the downgrade was a matter of speculation Friday but the Times noted that a small increase in interest rates on borrowed funds could add tens of billions of dollars to the nation's annual debt repayment.

There is also a possibility that a downgrade of federal debt could lead to downgrades of other government-backed instruments, possibly leading to higher mortgage interest rates.

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass.,, the ranking member on the House Financial Services Committee, said on MSNBC the decision was "just a political judgment by a group of incompetents."

"This is the rating agency that took money from people who were selling junk bonds and told other people to buy it," Frank said, accusing S&P of overvaluing private debt while consistently undervaluing public debt."

"They are as responsible for the financial crisis as anybody else," he said. "There is zero chance of (the United States) defaulting."

Moody's Investor Services and Fitch Ratings both said Tuesday they will keep the country's credit rating at triple-A for now, but they said a downgrade is still possible if the U.S. financial situation deteriorates or if promised federal spending cuts don't materialize.

The two credit ratings firms issued their assessments after President Barack Obama signed into law compromise legislation passed by Congress to raise the nation's debt limit and cut its budget deficit.