"Shut up and leave the parenting to us!"

Well, that's not EXACTLY what a jr. high school in Jackson, Miss. said to parents this week, but it's not far off the mark.

Seems that a class of sixth graders at the predominately black school (that's right, I didn't use the politically correct "African American" because we are all Americans, regardless of skin color, yes?) was given an assignment that according to backpedalling school officials was supposed to be about statistics.

Maybe so, but it's the dumbest assignment I think I've ever heard of.

The children were asked to rank each other according to who they thought was most likely to become pregnant, get HIV or end up dead by the age of 19. See, they were given a list of stats about the current state of black Americans -- family life, crime, etc. -- and encouraged to figure out who in their class might one day fulfill those statistical profiles.

Forget positive and encouraging forecasting like, "Most Likely to Succeed," or "Most Likely to Graduate With Honors."

No, this was much more meaningful, I guess, to the wingnut of a teacher who devised the lesson.

Children came home from the class upset, paranoid, fearful. One girl reportedly told her father she won't wear lipgloss anymore. She was one of the students voted most likely to get pregnant and perhaps she thinks the lipgloss makes her look too worldly or sophisticated -- like the kind of 12-year-old who would make herself "available."

The only thing worse than the assignment is the school's handling of parental complaints. Officials are refusing to let parents see the actual lesson materials.

Isn't it obvious by now? Well, isn't it?

Government schools (I refuse to call them 'public' schools because they aren't run by the public for the good of the public -- just paid for by us) will almost always take the position that THEY, not the parents, know best when it comes to our children.

THEY will decide what we need to know and when. THEY will decide what to teach our children and THEY will find every opportunity to silence those parents who don't follow the herd.

THEY usually like to point out, with no basis in fact of course, that parents who opt to homeschool are fools because they lack the so-called professional credentials deemed vital to successfully educating children.

Really? If the twaddle that passes for education in the aforementioned school is any indication of what folks need to know to teach kids, I'm proud to remain ignorant.