Schools continue to take rights from parents.

No, I'm for taking all that money that we spend on testing the pants off of our kids...

This is part of our society and kids should be exposed to it. Schools should cover this the same way they cover race, religion, civics economics and any other part of our society.

I would also repeat that learning that kids have a mommy and a daddy is not teaching about sex. Likewise learning that some kids have two mommies or two daddies isn't teachning about sex either. It is just teaching about real aspects of our culture.

Being an educated citizen is a lot more than learning how to add.

Our children are among the most ignorant in the free world and although I have no problem with them learning tolerance and understanding that there are diverse beliefs and lifestyles, I'd like to see them learn how to read, write, speak grammatically correct english and be able to identify the f**king vice president from a photograph before we teach them about homosexuality. It's a priority issue.

The ignorance our children display is abominable and our own fault.

I try to make sure my cubs aren't so ignorant, but it's an uphill battle.

I'm being a lazy a$$ and not going back and reading all the new posts so this might already have been discussed: most of the social lessons for early elementary students (k, 1st, and to some degree 2nd) are usually mixed in with the basic curriculum. For example, rather than using the traditional readers like the adventures of "Dick and Jane" where everyone is white and comes from traditional two-parent families, schools use readers that meet the same objective but provide a more accurate picture of society. Either way, the kids are learning to read; the difference is that now they're learning to read and getting a relatively accurate view of society whereas before they learned to read and developed ethnocentrism and misconceptions about society.

And all this talk about schools "teaching sexuality" to youngsters--I'm having a flashback to the South Park episode I saw last night: Mr. Garrison quizzing the kindergartners on the different sexual positions they'd studied. Teaching kids that some children have two daddies or two mommies (or two daddies and a mommy, two mommies and a daddy, a mommy who used to be a daddy, or whatever) is NOT teaching sexuality; it's teaching social reality that they will likely encounter at some point in the near future.

I'll leave you with one final thought: "Red rocket, Sparky! Red rocket!" :wink:

I say, put the little perishers to work . . . why should corporate America have to go overseas to look for sweatshops. We can build 'em here, and none of this messy education business for peasants who don't need it anyway.

What business is that or yours?

Why do you think i didn't want anybody to know? I take it as a given that those with ordinary reading comprehension can understand irony and satire. Those who are obliged to ask for an explanation have no right to know. By the way, you misspelled welfare.

I didn't know it was the responsibility of the school to teach students about families?

I thought that was the job of the parents to teach about families.

Since when did the schools become the instructors of social engineering?

<applause>

(For Mills - on both his posts so far.)

Have families become taboo, too? Will little Johnny stop trying to sneak a peak at the old man's Playboy in favor of Mom's Family Circle?

Preparing students for the world is certainly among the many chores with which public education is charged.

Educating students about family diversity only helps them understand what they're apt to experience at some point during a visit to little Susie's or little Jimmy's house.

This is common sense. Or perhaps we should prevent schools from touching on common sense (I'll bet some people out there really wish schools would stop with that nonsense about the Earth being round).

Exposing children to family diversity is no more social engineering than is exposing them to the fact that some people have different skin color, hair texture, or eye shape.

That some children come from families with homosexual parents is a social reality being addressed by schools, not created by them.