In news reports around the country, there is an increasing number of stories about controversial materials being included in school curriculums, battles over how much "religion" children are forced to participate in with reciting the "Pledge of Allegiance," security for children attending public schools, and the quality of teachers responsible for the development of our children. Trends are moving increasingly toward giving a loud voice to fringe and minority groups based on freedoms of speech and expression. At increasingly younger ages, children are being forced to confront issues about sexuality, drug use, abortion rights, gay rights, violence, and other issues that our society as a whole finds difficult to resolve.

Public schools seem to have strayed significantly from their intended purpose of providing a level of quality education that reflects the desires of the communities they serve in a forced effort to accommodate the views of fringe and minority influences. In addressing issues being raised, it might be helpful to recall what now seems to be getting lost in the fires of debate over the kind of education children receive when attending a public school. The purpose of education is to provide a process by which children are equipped to move from the ignorance and innocence of adolescence into the responsible role of informed, productive, and contributing adults who are capable of making beneficial decisions about the future course of society.

This responsibility is not a single handed effort to be left completely up to the people who provide the information our children learn in schools, but a partnership that necessarily includes the participation and influences represented by the parents of these children. When there is a growing divide between the perspectives of the parents and teachers who direct the process of educating children, the entire system fails to serve the community, and the children emerge with a distorted and confused ability to make decisions about their own place in social development.

The role of public schools is to provide a well planned process of discovery that reflects the mainstream desires and perspectives of the communities they serve. Children begin the process by directly reflecting the results of parental teachings they received prior to entering into the system, and should be allowed to follow through a progressive process of developing basic functional skills, gaining an understanding of how to increase their ability to learn new skills and ideas, and finally emerge with what they need to make informed decisions of their own. Where there may be clashes between the perspective of parents and educators, it is essential for both parents and teachers to recognize their respective roles in resolving these issues appropriately.

Institutions should be required to vigorously defend and maintain their place in reflecting the mainstream majority views of the communities they operate within, and keep parents clearly informed on positions these views represent. In turn, when a parent recognizes that mainstream views run counter to their own system of beliefs and opinion, it is their own responsibility to participate in relating this information to their children without disrupting the processes established by public institutions. If a parent becomes completely appalled by what their children are learning from within the public system of education, they should be willing to consider a process of private or home schooling that is more in line with their own system of beliefs.

Although the public school system should be able to introduce reflections and opinions generated by minority elements, the focus for doing this should also be in the more advanced stages of learning, when children have reached a sufficient level of maturity to give them a chance to progress through the early stages of development, and allows the time they need to better understand themselves and who they are as individuals. When a child that has not yet reached puberty is confronted with trying to understand whether or not they are homosexual, because of material they obtain in the school library, something has gone extremely wrong with following the mainstream educational process.

As people move into adulthood, it is a natural tendency for them to test the validity of the values and perspectives they have been taught by previous generations. It is at this stage of our development when such activities are both appropriate and beneficial. Public education should be crafted to be the best possible model for what the majority of parents view as an "ideal" learning experience, and should do a good job of determining where the presentation of this goal has fallen short. Parents need to maintain their vigilance in understanding the course of mainstream views, and be prepared to make good decisions about moving their children toward or away from the acceptance of these majority ideas.