THE GAZETTE-TELEGRAPH, March 13, 1997
P. O. Box 1779,Colorado Springs,CO,80901
(Fax 719-636-0202, print run 117,000)
(E-MAIL: gtop@usa.net)

MORE EDUCATION OPTIONS KEY TO DEBATE ABOUT MORALS IN SCHOOLS

By Steve Cary

Recent debate over changes to District 11's health and sex ed curriculum reinforce the need to expand school choice options to include private and religious schools through vouchers or tax credits. The problems are systematic and go beyond both D-11 and sex education. The central issue is that a number of curricular subjects have inherent moral dimensions that can only be addressed from a religious-philosophical perspective.

Government-managed schools may attempt to be religiously neutral. When they succeed, students often get a shallow education without a sound philosophical basis for decision making.

When schools fail at such attempts, students are often taught the conclusions of anti-Christian/anti-religious thinking, even if the reasoning behind those conclusions is omitted.

For example, although District 20 has an "abstinence-based" sex ed curriculum, students are only encouraged to wait until they can have a "mature relationship," not until they are married.

This is not philosophically neutral. Neutrality is impossible.

D-20 bases its abstinence approach largely on pragmatic considerations involving avoiding pregnancy and disease. This kind of pragmatism is one religious-philosophical option out of many, but not a neutral one.

The underlying problem is broader than sex ed. I asked a senior D-20 administrator if the curriculum taught that there was anything inherently wrong with extramarital sexual intercourse.

She replied no, that such instruction would be impermissibly religious. I asked her if the D-20 curriculum taught that anything was inherently morally wrong. She said it did not. I admired her candor if not her position.

This relativistic moral perspective is reflected in how many teachers refer to student behavior.

It's not wrong, promiscuous or evil. It's inappropriate, counter-productive or unacceptable.

Teaching that theft is inappropriate instead of evil is not being neutral. It's just trading one religious-philosphical perspective for another.

The government's legitimate interest in public education is based on an academic core that includes reading, writing, math and science. As our culture has incrementally abandoned the Judeo-Christian world view, other components of the core have been cast aside.

Judeo-Christian ethics, even theology, were once part of that core.

The New England Primer was the dominant American first-grade reader in the late 18th and early 19th centuries for private, public and parochial education. The lessons are saturated with religious references that would send the modern ACLU into convulsions. Few, if any, of America's founders would have contended that using the New England Primer in public schools violated the First Amendment. There is no valid constitutional reason for excluding those kinds of lessons now, if families that disagree have other publicly funded options. With expanded educational choice, they would.

If we publicly fund education, parents should have a publicly funded choice that includes schools where theft is presented as inherently evil, not just as violating current community standards of propriety. Public funding should not be denied to families because they insist on a school that teaches that a cohesive family with a loving husband and wife is the best environment for raising children or that homosexuality is immoral.

Because parents deserve more flexibility does not mean that there should be no limits on which private schools get public funding. Only hard-core diversity proponents would insist on funding schools that promoted the genocidal views of German-style Natio nal Socialism, for example.

This does not mean we should continue to deny educational choices to parents simply because some in our community find those choices to be at variance with their personal philosophical preference.

STEVE CARY

Background: A Springs resident for 21/2 years, Cary has a master's degree in operations research. He is retired military officer with more than 20 years in the service. He and his wife have two children who attend local schools.