>>>In fairness, there's also good evidence that kids do better in most respects if biological dad is around. Seems to me there's a tension between "inclusiveness" and normalization of paths to worse results.
>>>
>>>For crying out loud! Enough already. Personally, I am offended by people being offended. I think that the we have more important problems to worry about: radical Islamic terrorism (ISIS) and 20 trillion dollars of debt just to name a couple. IMHO, this crap is all sleight of hand.
>>
>>Agreed, Marcia.
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>>Besides, it's unrealistic.
>>Kids who are "different" know it, for sure.
>>Sugarcoating reality never helped anyone.
>>That said, I'd get still rid of all this nonsense and most school sports.
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>I'm curious what you're classifying as nonsense.
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>Curious also why you'd get rid of school sports. Pretty sure there's a good body of evidence that, on the whole, they're a positive. Among other things, they encourage physical activity, teach teamwork, and for some kids, are a primary motivator for getting up and going to school in the morning. FWIW, though my kids didn't do school sports, they were heavily into music and theater. My younger son never particularly liked school (though he always did exceptionally well) and has said publicly that it was his music classes and extracurriculars that kept him there. (Though I'm in favor of having school sports, I also recognize that in many places, they have too much power and are the tail wagging the dog. I'm for fixing that.)
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>Tamar

Nonsense = things like Father/Daughter dances, Halloween parties and the like being supported by schools.
There are other institutions in the society for that kind of activity and there are private schools parents can use which allow people to do pretty much whatever they like.
Some relatives of mine are super-religious. One mother of 6- she is a Phi Beta Kappa Computer Science grad- is home schooling all 6 because she wants more religion in their education.
Great. Her kids are getting a first rate education, she's happy and the public schools can focus on what they should, academic achievement.


Regarding sports- I'm OK with intramural sports, but things get out of hand once schools start competing with other schools.
Our high school here has 4 soccer coaches! That's an insane expense.
The kids practice hours each day. That has to cut in to study time.
That's at the high school level.
At the college level, it's criminal. Kids are getting phoney grades and coaches are making millions of dollars.