Can Public Education Teach Morality?

In the Spring of 1955 a note from my home room teacher indicated that my father wanted me to meet him at his office as soon as school let out. No sooner did I arrive than I was whisked off to the local satellite DMV office to take the exam and road test for my driver’s license. Since that day was my sixteenth birthday, I had a real good idea as to what was about to happen: I was going to get my first car.

It was a 1949 Ford Custom 2-Door with metallic blue paint, whitewall tires, fender skirts, a three-speed stick shift transmission with overdrive, and an AM radio. It was beautiful!

The thrill and joy of the moment was shattered when, in a very stern voice, Dad, as he handed me the keys, said: “I know what goes on in the back seat of cars. You’d best keep your buttons buttoned and your zippers zipped — because if you cause a young woman to be in a family way, she will be entirely your responsibility. Understood?”

Some may say that was crude, maybe even mean. But it was effective. While I have no knowledge of how other fathers handled the same situation with their sons, what I do know is that within my very large circle of friends there was but one teen pregnancy — and that led to a long lasting marriage.

In the America of today, however, that family-centered dynamic has been institutionally displaced by public school sex education programs that have ushered in such aberrations as an ever-growing population segment of unwed teenage mothers, and, according to 2010 CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) figures, there is a trend of nineteen million reported new cases of STDs per year -- at an estimated yearly cost of $18 Billion.

The linkage between cause and the effects of sex education are manifest in the digressive concepts of subtle endorsement (... they’re going to do it anyhow so we might as well “properly” instruct them) and the broader disconnect from moral imperatives through the progressive archetypes of subjective, relative and pluralistic rationalizations. Public education has expanded well beyond it’s original commission.

The budget for San Diego County K-12 public schools exceeds $4 billion per year, yet test scores reveal county students scored but average in English and Science and below average in Mathematics.

NOTE: For readers interested in exploring San Diego County education data, here’s a useful LINK. Additional information can be found in an editorial I wrote for East County Magazine.

Test scores, STDs and teen-age, unwed births are but symptoms of a much larger problem; most of which, I truly believe, can be attributed to a cultural rejection of the concept that there are absolute right and wrong behaviors.

It is generally accepted that it is the moms and dads of nuclear families who impart virtue and morals to their children. Houses of worship also play a significant role in shaping the behavior of their congregations.

But when a child is born to a single parent and is raised in a day-care like environment, who then is to provide guidance during a child’s critical formative years? A teenage parent? An absentee father?

Moreover, given the strained economic situation of many families struggling to survive, is it a stretch to assume that quality of life in general and time for reviewing life’s lessons might necessarily become a secondary or even overlooked consideration?

It would appear that the selection of public education curricula is driven more by what is acclaimed to be politically correct — as opposed to imparting social studies from a broader philosophical and historical perspective. In ruling unconstitutional the act(s) of reading from the Bible and reciting prayer in School District of Abington Township, PA v. Schempp (No. 142) USSC_CR_0374_0203_ZO; Decided June 17, 1963; with U. S. Supreme Court Justice Clark delivering the majority opinion, also included the following in his conclusive remarks:

In addition, it might well be said that one's education is not complete without a study of comparative religion or the history of religion and its relationship to the advancement of civilization. It certainly may be said that the Bible is worthy of study for its literary and historic qualities. Nothing we have said here indicates that such study of the Bible or of religion, when presented objectively as part of a secular program of education, may not be effected consistently with the First Amendment.

Forty-one percent of all births in the USA are to unwed mothers — a clear indicator of a worsening trend. To assume that the children born in such circumstances will somehow assimilate behavioral morality is unrealistic; to institutionally deprive them of access to knowledge depicting the historical and philosophical examples of the right/wrong paradigm and the resultant consequences — is unconscionable.