Recently, The Alpena News ran a column where the two political parties compared their philosophy of who should decide on the curriculum of our public schools. I have always thought that educating our children was teaching them reading, writing, and arithmetic. Apparently, not any more. My parents taught me and my sisters how to get along with other people, to be kind to them, and to respect our elders, to believe in God, to respect and obey the law and government.

Both parties have decided that this role should now be filled by our educators. They have shown they are not capable of teaching our children the subjects they are currently assigned; how do the politicians expect them to teach these additional subjects? At least the Republicans advocate some parental control of some educational material.

Democrats said they “believe in our educators and they believe in science.” They proceed to extol how they believe in the educators as long as they teach only the government-mandated curriculum and do not succumb to the pressure when parents want to introduce other subjects to the educational agenda. They request that parents volunteer to attend classes and support the required agenda, which parents are fighting against.

Education should be under local control, not the federal government or state governments. They have proven over and over that they failed miserably at the functions they are presently charged with. Why should we trust them with educating our children? Their only purpose is to indoctrinate our children to their philosophy so they will vote for them when they come of age. Thus, we may expect the curriculum to change each time the party in charge changes.

RUSSELL WILSON,

Hubbard Lake