The Tribune`s Aug. 25 editorial ”Reading, writing and birth control?”
is a message of despair. In the struggle to be moral–which no one says is easy–you have added your voice to the authorities saying to our young people, ”Give up.”
As all teachers (and parents) know, we teach what is acceptable when we allow particular behavior and not just when we actively promote it. If a teacher sees a student cheating and says nothing, the student thinks,
”Cheating is all right in this class.” The establishment of a clinic which dispenses or prescribes contraceptives on school property, where students are required by law to go, tells them very clearly, ”Immoral sexual behavior, sex outside of marriage, must be all right–the school accepts it.” At a time in young people`s lives when they are beginning to test and question what their parents and churches have taught them, the school tells them,
”Your parents are old-fashioned; the school agrees with the morality of the soap operas.”
We have a right to expect better leadership from the Board of Education and from a leading newspaper.
