The Role of Public Education: What Should They Teach Our Kids?

What are schools supposed to teach anymore? When I was a kid, not that long ago, schools focused on basics, and did at least an adequate job.

Now, they're not focused on whether my kid did well in math; instead, they break it into bits and describe each bit in esoteric terms, a professional language that is better at locking people out than including them in the educational process. And they take old concepts -- mathematical factoring, for instance -- and try to teach them in new ways that, when I help my kids with homework, I wind up backtracking on, teaching them the old way, and then show them what this new method is trying to do.

I could live with this, honestly. It's annoying, but at least I get decent information. But then they start talking about how well my kids are doing in a group setting, individually, socially.

There's a real change happening here. Instead of focusing on academics, schools are focusing on other things: whether my kid gets along with others, whether he's a team player, whether he's learning things RIGHT, instead of just learning. And suddenly, I'm his CEO, not his mother, while teachers seem to be bureaucrats in charge of different aspects of him.

That is, when I'm allowed to be a CEO and not a figurehead. Often, parents today are treated by school systems as biological donors to their own children, and the schools are taking on the responsibility of his raising.

I want schools to stick with the academics, at least until our kids catch up with Japan and India. I'm tired of my kid being dunked into a sociological petri dish in someone's ideological lab. I can take care of their moral development just fine, thank you. And as for parents who can't - they should be held accountable. The more responsibility you remove from people in a society, the fewer you will have who are capable of managing responsibility at all.

My Role As Parent

I will teach my kids the moral issues: sex, politics, and religion. Since the schools aren't doing it, I will also teach them how to think, how to reason, how to use formal and informal logic to understand how commercials sell to them, why their friends' arguments are stupid, and how to be rational. I will give them a safe home, parents they can turn to for protection and structure, and all the love I have.

I will watch them every day as they develop into young men. I will cheer them on in their victories, and guide them to the lessons inherent in failure. I will make sure they know they can be anything, and I will open their eyes to possibilities they never thought of. My oldest, the Marine-to-be, will be a game designer. My middle son will be an engineer, and someday an Imagineer at Disney or an astronaut at NASA. My youngest will be a chef.

Or they will be whatever else they decide to be. I support their decisions and goals. I'm determined to give them something I didn't really have: a solid foundation from which they can launch their lives. I will be the person who believes in them every step of the way.

And when they're ready to spread their wings, I'll blow upward with my last breath until they catch the current and rise as high as they can. That's my job. No school can give them that, only parents.

That is why I am responsible for this part of their education. Sex, drugs, politics, religion -- those things all belong to me. Not a society, not a school, not even a church. Just me. In some situations, I may cede part of that power to others. But the choice is mine. It should never be required, and those who try to take that responsibility away from me have a fight on their hands.