Problem Solved

Before the unholy decade of the 1960s, students dressed in formal wear like little ladies and gentlemen and always paid attention to their lessons.

Townhall and talk radio dolt Dennis Prager has some new ideas for schools. If he had his way----.

If you wish to affirm an ethnic, racial, or religious identity through school, you will have to go elsewhere. We will end all ethnicity-, race-, and non-American-nationality-based celebrations.

Woops, there goes Christian celebrations like Christmas and Easter holidays.

First, this school will no longer honor race or ethnicity. I could not care less if your racial makeup is black, brown, red, yellow, or white. I could not care less if your origins are African, Latin American, Asian, or European, or if your ancestors arrived here on the Mayflower or on slave ships.

There goes Columbus Day and Thanksgiving.

I will not authorize clubs that divide students based on any identities. This includes race, language, religion, sexual orientation, or whatever else may become in vogue in a society divided by political correctness.

There go all the foreign language clubs. My Spanish club's annual trip to La Hacienda? Verboten!

Your clubs will be based on interests and passions, not blood, ethnic, racial, or other physically defined ties. Those clubs just cultivate narcissism — an unhealthy preoccupation with the self — while the purpose of education is to get you to think beyond yourself. So we will have clubs that transport you to the wonders and glories of art, music, astronomy, languages you do not already speak, carpentry, and more.

But you got rid of the foreign language clubs. Does this mean that only non-Hispanics can have a Spanish club? And isn't art and music kind of gay? You don't want gay kids getting together, do you Dennis? And astronomy--isn't that kind of atheistic? Carpentry? Tools are expensive; who's going to pay for that? Not us conservatives. Just readin', writin', and 'rithmitic for us.

Third, because I regard learning as a sacred endeavor, everything in this school will reflect learning’s elevated status. This means, among other things, that you and your teachers will dress accordingly. Many people in our society dress more formally for a meal at a nice restaurant than they do for church or school. These people have their priorities backwards. Therefore, there will be a formal dress code at this school.

Most schools have dress codes. Many public schools require uniforms. But hey, if Prager thinks he can force the parents of his students to dress them in suits and ties or dresses and pantyhose, he can go for it.

Fourth, no obscene language will be tolerated anywhere on this school’s property — whether in class, in the hallways, or at athletic events. If you can’t speak without using the F-word, you can’t speak. By obscene language I mean the words banned by the Federal Communications Commission plus epithets such as the N-word, even when used by one black student to address another, or “bitch,” even when addressed by a girl to a girlfriend. It is my intent that by the time you leave this school, you will be among the few of your age to distinguish instinctively between the elevated and the degraded, the holy and the obscene.

Torture--hunky-dory. The f-word--obscene and profane. Let's keep our priorities straight.

Prager's mythical school sounds like it would be a sure-fire success. Once you make sure your students all look and sound like a 1950s picture book, every other problem melts away. But at least Prager isn't trying to get rid of public schools altogether, like all the gullible people being paid by major corporations to eliminate the corporations' property taxes. Those conservatives would be perfectly happy paying five grand or more per child per year to educate their kids, and pay for private police to protect them from the bored, angry, uneducated and unemployed masses that they can't wait to unleash upon the world.