Denver Students Protest Conservative Curriculum Promoting Patriotism, Respect For Authority

This warms the heart and gives me hope for the future.

The school board proposal that triggered the walkouts in Jefferson County calls for instructional materials that present positive aspects of the nation and its heritage. It would establish a committee to regularly review texts and course plans, starting with Advanced Placement history, to make sure materials “promote citizenship, patriotism, essentials and benefits of the free-market system, respect for authority and respect for individual rights” and don’t “encourage or condone civil disorder, social strife or disregard of the law.”

This does seem to raise legitimate questions about the purposes of secondary education, of course. It's common to say that one of its purposes is to help produce better citizens...  But needless to say, there's an overtly brainwashy and overly ideological orientation here. Respect for individual rights is uncontroversially a good thing (well...I've met some people on the far left that sneer at the idea...but it's uncontroversial among reasonable people...). But the problems here are obvious, and a walk-out seems like the more-or-less perfect response to a proposal that students be sent to respect-for-authority re-education camp...
(On something vaguely like the other hand, though, I'd like to see similar reactions when schools institute community service requirements... Just because something is a good thing doesn't mean that you get to force high school kids to do it.)

(via Reddit)