Several years ago I was in a meeting with a group of prominent leaders in the fields of education and media. The discussion came around to public schools. I pointed out how public schools will only get worse and those who are trying to fix the problems will only be frustrated.

I went on to point out that public schools are really government schools. The curriculum is designed to promote all things government.

Then there was the moral decline in government schools and how social engineers use government schools as training camps for a government-centered ideology.

Sure, there are some good teachers, but they are limited in how and what they can teach. They must teach the curriculum. To deviate from the curriculum can get a teacher fired.

After my modulated rant, one of the men stated that where his children went to school was different. I said, maybe in degree. Furthermore, I said, every person who defends government schools tells me the same thing. “It’s the other schools that are bad, not where my children go to school.”

I then said, “The parents of the other schools are saying the same thing. When they point out that it’s the other schools that are bad and not their schools, they’re talking about your schools.”

I suspect that most parents have no idea what goes on in a typical government school. It’s only when somebody posts the outrage in a story or video that we take notice. But do we? The majority of Americans still send their children to these indoctrination centers.

I suspect that the overwhelming majority of parents at New Hampshire’s Gilford High School will continue to send their children there even after the content of Jodi Picoult’s novel “Nineteen Minutes” has been made public by a father, William Baer, who got arrested on May 5th for trying to question the content of the book at a school board meeting.

The novel, Nineteen Minutes, by Jodi Picoult is a controversial book that tells the story of a fictional school shooting and the people it affects. Though the book has been part of the curriculum in New Hampshire’s Gilford High School since 2007, when it was assigned last Monday [March 28], school officials gave no notice to parents of freshmen English students that the book was being read, or of the novel’s sexually explicit content.

How did the parents find out about the content of the book? From their daughter? No. Did the school tell them? No. Remember, the book had been part of the curriculum since 2007.

A family friend was visiting last Wednesday and talking to Baer’s 14-year-old daughter about how things were going in school. When she mentioned that she’d just been assigned the novel, the friend picked up the book and casually opened it to page 313 which contains a very graphic description of a sexual encounter between two adolescents. The friend was aghast as he read the passage, and asked Baer if he was aware of the book’s content.

The following is from the book:

“Relax,” Matt murmured, and then he sank his teeth into her shoulder. He pinned her hands over her head and ground his hips against hers. She could feel his erection, hot against her stomach.

She couldn’t remember ever feeling so heavy, as if her heart were beating between her legs. She clawed at Matt’s back to bring him closer.

“Yeah,” he groaned, and he pushed her thighs apart. And then suddenly Matt was inside her, pumping so hard that she scooted backward on the carpet, burning the backs of her legs. . . . He clamped his hand over her mouth and drove harder and harder until Josie felt him come.

Semen, sticky and hot, pooled on the carpet beneath her.

Sex is a good thing. It’s how we were made. You and I wouldn’t be here without it. But like anything, there are boundaries. Fire is a good thing, but used irresponsibly, it can disfigure, destroy homes, and wipe out thousands of acres of habitat. Controlled, it can heat our homes, melt steel for buildings, and supply power to engines for cars and airplanes.

The same is true of sex. Today’s schools teach a lot about sex. Most of it is taught without any regard to morality. The schools assume that children are going to engage sexually, so they believe it’s necessary to teach them how to protect themselves. In the end, the children learn the technique of sex without any moral obligation of what comes with a sexual relationship.

For Baer, this incident is the latest indication that the nation’s public education system is bent on indoctrinating children with moral relativism.

He believes the politicians and educators running the public school system want to dismantle the family unit, and undermine traditional morality, “though they’re never going to admit this.”

“Many people in education and government truly believe our children are theirs. That parents are only the custodians who feed them and put a roof over their head. These school incidents are a byproduct of this ‘we know best’ philosophy. They believe they have the authority to do this. If people were more complacent, which is hard to imagine, it’d be even worse.”

By the way, removing the book from the curriculum or parental disapproval of the content of the book is not censorship. The book is available for sale, and anybody can buy it.

Parents are fooling themselves if they think they’re going to change government schools. They’re not. At best, a government entity can move a few degrees one way or another, but wholesale change is impossible.

Ben Velderman, who has been reporting on this story, writes:

Hopefully, this incident—which is merely the latest in a long line of outrages—gets more Americans to see the need for genuine school choice. That way, parents can send their kids to a school where they’ll actually receive a quality education, free of R-rated reading material, left-wing indoctrination and all the Common Core nonsense that’s plaguing public education.

Parents already have school choice. They can choose to send their children to the school of their choice, homeschool, or start a school. What a majority don’t want to do is to pay the extra costs involved.