Starting this year, public middle schools and high schools in New York City will be required to offer sex education classes with curriculum that includes lessons on how to use a condom and the risks of unprotected sex, The New York Times reports. The former sex ed policy lacked strict requirements and left sex education curriculum mostly to school principals. The curriculum proposed by Mayor Bloomberg will be more aggressive and will mandate two semesters of sex education—one in 6th or 7th grade and again in 9th or 10th grade—when the former requirement was only one semester. The new policy is part of a larger effort by the Bloomberg administration to improve the lives of black and Latino youth, who are more likely than their white counterparts to have unplanned pregnancies and contract sexually transmitted infections.

To read the Times article, click here.