By Walter Williams, Creators Syndicate
October 1996 – Some things are beyond debate. Suppose I hire someone simply to mow my lawn. After mowing the lawn, he pulls up my rosebushes and plants azaleas in their place. Do you think I should debate with him over whether it’s better to have rosebushes or azaleas in my flower bed? I think not. My response would be: “I paid you to mow my lawn, not make decisions about my flower bed. You’re fired!” Let’s talk about education and beyond-debate issues.
According to the Pocono Record in Stroudsburg, Pennsylavina, (May 15,1996), parents of a sixth-grader are suing the East Stroudsburg Area School District for what they claim as subjecting their daughter to a compulsory strip and body cavity search. It turns out that their daughter and 58 other J.T. Lambert Intermediate School girls were summoned to the infirmary. The school nurse instructed them to strip down to their underwear in preparation for a gynecological examination. Some parents said their daughters asked not to have their genitals examined but were told they had to. Some of the girls started to cry, and at least one was denied the right to call home.
J.T. Lambert School was greeted with a storm of parental protest. Dr. Ramlah Vahanvaty, who performed the exams, explained, “What it involved is an external examination of the labia to see if there were any warts or vaginal lesions. You can’t see these if you don’t retract the labia.” She said, “I want to do what’s in the best interest of the children,” adding later, “Even a parent doesn’t have the right to say what’s appropriate for a physician to do when they’re doing an exam.”
That arrogance is part and parcel of today’s education. Thomas Sowell’s Inside American Education gives numerous examples of schools usurping parental authority, i.e., doing what they, as opposed to the parents, think is best for children. Often what they do is unbeknownst to parents. Fifth- and sixth-graders are shown films of childbirth. In testimony before the U.S. Department of Education, one parent told of her fifth-grade son being given a plastic model of female genitalia with a tampon inserted so the boys would know how tampons fit.
In the name of “values clarification,” children are asked questions like: “What disturbs you most about your parents?” “Who’s the boss in your family?” “Do you believe in God?” “Tell where you stand on the topic of masturbation.” The U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare produced a 1979 “health” questionnaire that included questions such as: “How often do you normally masturbate (play with yourself sexually)?” “How often do you normally engage in light petting (playing with a girl’s breast)?” “How often do you normally engage in heavy petting (playing with a girl’s vagina and the area around it)?” In a “values clarification” curriculum in Oregon, third-graders were asked. “How many of you ever wanted to beat up your parents?” In a Tucson high school health class, students were asked, “How many of you hate your parents?”
J.T. Lambert Intermediate School did send out notices that the school would be giving physical examinations. Like other deceptive educational practices going under euphemistic titles such as “values clarification,” “health education” and “gifted students” programs, the true agenda was concealed. The notice made no mention that the school physician would make a gynecological examination and “retract the labia.”
We as parents pay schools to teach our kids how to read, write and do arithmetic. We don’t pay them to undermine and challenge parental values and authority. It’s about time we made that abundantly clear. 
