Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

14. Department of Health and Human Services · Minor

Create criteria for evaluating sex education curricula

Partially done

477 14. Department of Health and Human Services

“HHS should create a list of criteria for evaluating the sort of curriculum that should be selected for any sex education grant programs, both at OASH and at ACF, with the aim of promoting optimal health and adhering to the legislative language of each program.”

What has happened

  1. Partially done

    **OPA published a criteria set, and it is the criteria set this Quote asks for.** Appendix A of NOFO AH-TP1-26-001, *Criteria for Eligible TPP Effective Programs*, was read directly on 2026-09-03. It opens: "The criteria below define the level of evaluation quality and evidence required for a program to be considered rigorously evaluated and eligible for replication under this NOFO." It then specifies the admissible research designs (randomised controlled trials and quasi-experimental impact designs); a **15-year timeliness rule** ('at least one impact study with evidence of effectiveness from a follow-up data collection conducted within the last 15 years'); nine eligible outcome domains from sexual activity and number of partners through STIs, pregnancies, parental engagement, sexting, substance use and pornography use, of which at least one must be met; two **intermediate** domains that are expressly not sufficient on their own — 'body literacy and reproductive health knowledge' and 'reproductive goals and future-oriented decision-making'; and a study-quality table setting 'high' and 'moderate' ratings against What Works Clearinghouse attrition standards, baseline equivalence, reassignment and confounding factors. OPA's own Q&A describes it as specifying 'the level of evidence and evaluation quality required for eligibility', aligned with 'the Department's commitment to gold standard science'. **`partial` and not `done`, twice capped.** The criteria govern one grant competition at OASH, not sex-education grant programs generally; and the Quote asks for criteria at **both OASH and ACF**, and nothing comparable has been published on the ACF side — an enumerated pair of programs is a limb, and an unclosed limb caps the ask. Nobody flagged this item for the read queue; it moved because the row's page-mates were checked against the same read.

  2. Not started

    As of the enactment date, the criteria that governed the money were Congress's, not HHS's, and they predate the window in substance: the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026 requires the teen pregnancy prevention grants to fund 'medically accurate and age appropriate programs' and the sexual risk avoidance grants to 'use medically accurate information referenced to peer-reviewed publications' and to address other risk behaviors 'without normalizing teen sexual activity'.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

  • One search covered the four p. 477 sex-education asks — this one, #1320, #1321 and #1322.

  • The HHS active regulatory agenda (183 RINs, reginfo.gov) contains no sex education curriculum rulemaking at OASH or ACF. The criteria arrived through a notice of funding opportunity rather than a rulemaking, which is why the agenda search found nothing — some instruments never enter the Federal Register.

  • Shared instrument. NOFO AH-TP1-26-001 and its Q&A are also the Evidence for #1322 (abolish approved sex education curriculum lists). What they do to this Quote is publish evaluation criteria; what they do to #1322’s is remove the approved-program list those criteria replaced. Stated in both notes.

  • The ACF limb is untouched and is what holds this at partial: no ACF notice, funding opportunity or rulemaking in the window publishes curriculum-evaluation criteria.

  • EO 14332 grant-process sweep (2026-09-29). Executive Order 14332 (2025-08-07) puts every agency’s funding announcements and discretionary awards under senior-appointee review and a test of the President’s priorities. Under a rule settled on 2026-09-29, it counts only where an ask’s object is review, clearance or priority-alignment of an agency’s awards. This Quote’s object is curriculum criteria for sex-education grants, which are one set of programs’ selection criteria. OPA’s FY2026 NOFOs require alignment with the OASH Priorities document (recorded on #1320), which is the kind of NOFO priority clause the rule counts, but it does not bear on curriculum criteria. The item already stands at partial on Appendix A of AH-TP1-26-001. Status unchanged.

Action
create
Object
criteria for sex education grant curricula
ID
1323