I passed the test. I am now a Certified Abstinence Educator.

I have no medical background, no public health training and no teaching certification, but according to the Abstinence Clearinghouse I am now qualified to go into schools across the country and teach your children "everything they need to know" about sex -- just like Derek the Abstinence Clown.

Derek, whose videos have been floating around the Internet for a few weeks now, works for an Ohio organization that gets federal tax money to provide abstinence-only education. He tells kids that they should avoid pre-marital sex because it's like juggling machetes, and then he illustrates the danger by, well, juggling machetes. One might note that Derek undermines his own argument; if he were serious about making his point, he'd cut off a hand and have to be rushed into surgery.

But Derek's sincerity is not in question; his effectiveness is. And Derek is only a tiny example of a much larger problem.

Since 1996, the federal government has spent more than a billion dollars on abstinence-only programs. Groups like Derek's use taxpayer money to tell teens that using condoms is like playing Russian roulette, that women need men for "financial support" while men need women for "domestic support," and that premarital sex will ruin their ability to ever have a happy marriage or family life.

These programs, by definition, discuss contraception only in terms of its (often vastly inflated) failure rates. A government review found that many programs also contain other egregious medical and scientific errors: One claimed that HIV can be spread through sweat and tears, while another asserted that simply touching another person's genitals can lead to pregnancy.

Every reputable scientific study has found that the abstinence-only approach is, at best, ineffective. Most find that teens in abstinence-only programs have sex at the same age and rate as other teens, and with just as many partners. A few studies indicate a more sinister effect: Columbia University researchers found that not only were students in abstinence-only programs having sex anyway, they were less likely to use condoms or other forms of contraception.

It makes sense. The assertion that premarital sex will condemn them to a life of poverty, degradation and disease does not align with their experience of a country where more than 95 percent of people have sex before they get married. And condoms? If they don't work, why use them?

After watching Derek's shtick, I got curious; what does it take to become a Certified Abstinence Educator?

Not much, as it turns out.

A little digging led me to the Web site of the Abstinence Clearinghouse, which, for $50, sent me a password to the online Certification Exam. The site also helpfully suggested that I purchase their publication "Abstinence 101," which, I was assured, would enable me to pass the test and "fight the war against comprehensive sex education" -- for just another $20. Instead, I decided to wing it by choosing for most questions the most absurd answer from the options available.

One question asked me to identify the founder of "Playboy" magazine. Another asked whether premarital sex or abstinence was more likely to lead to "stunted personal development," and "corruption of character."

A true/false question read, "Contraception may be appropriate for some unmarried adults and teens." Knowing my audience, I (correctly, according to my testers) chose "false."

Finally, I was asked to write a paragraph about why abstinence was so important. I purposely made my statement as vague and inane as possible, just to see what would happen. How did I do? I passed with 89 percent.

This is what passes for sex education in too many places across America. The idea that passing this absurd test makes me or Derek or anyone else a qualified educator is ridiculous. But it's not as ridiculous as continuing to use taxpayer money to fund this nonsense.

The United States has appalling rates of sexually transmitted diseases among teens. We have the highest teen pregnancy rate of any industrialized nation. And last year, the teen pregnancy rate increased.

We are doing a lousy job of teaching our young people how to make healthy and responsible sexual decisions. But that's what comes from leaving it up to the clowns.