Public School Hype

Conservative paranoia below. This is a "poem" that you can find posted all over the net on prayer and Christian websites, even in a letter to the President on Congress.com. It is currently circulating among Christian church groups via e-mail.

There appears to be a concerted effort among right wing extremists to eliminate public schools and to portray them as out-of-control orgies and drug fests. I think they believe rich kids will (continue) to go to private schools, and others will, I don't know, work in factories? I heard Bill O'Reilly on the radio accusing public schools of harboring what this poem outlines--violent kids, piercings, pregnancy, etc. A parent from North Carolina called in to differ with him saying that her public school had enforced dress codes and did not allow piercings. She also said children were sent to the principle and home if they misbehaved. He didn't want his listeners to think that that was the norm, yet he offered no counter example--not one single school that illustrated his point. He simply wants to, and I'm getting tired of restating this Republican technique, discredit public schools.

Appearing to aid this effort, the "poem" below is reportedly penned by a student in Arizona--why his/her name is witheld is suspicious and tempts me to think this was written by someone with a more grown-up agenda against the left. I'm looking into it...turns out it keeps being manipulated: New Prayer Hoax New Prayer Satire

Actually, most on the left believe in G_d and support the fact that kids today can and do pray silently in schools. I'm fairly sure G_d is allowed to be said in school without Federal intervention. It looks like whoever wrote this propagandistic poem based it on one atheist parent's courtcase (which also amounted to a bitter and horrible divorce fight to control his daughter's world view).

The separation between church and state is easy to ridicule I guess. I'm sad at how this poem portrays teenagers as violent, body piercing, sex driven witches. It would be great if we could provide teenagers with more constructive and better choices all around.

And all in all, I think most people, if they thought about it, would rather churches and parents teach religion, rather than public school teachers. I think ethics (based on Judeo-Christian values anyway) and tools to create healthy relationships would be more appropriate and society-changing subjects to teach in our public schools.

I would entitle this strange "poem" Choose Jesus or Death because that appears to be its underlying message to people. Note: I do believe that Jesus was an amazing man and Rabbi, I just don't believe that he was the son of G_d.