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When I was in the 2d grade in my first week of public school, I took several Jack London books to class to read. The teacher took them away from me. That began a long battle whose end result was that the Library was my first hour of school and I was able to read by myself in class as long as I took the tests and was quiet.

As for "appropriate" - when I was 8 I got to shoot the hogs for the smokehouse. I was also driving tractors on the highway and carried a rifle with me when I was out in the field. I worked beside my dad and my uncles from sunup to sunset and they talked freely about just about everything. Over half of them were Army vets. It could get salty.

Dude, that is *soooo* gay!

(My kid, who has two moms, only in the last year figured out what gay-as-in-homosexual means. I think we were watching The Wedding Banquet when she asked.)

In the UK, and I think I understand also in the US, this is a big issue at the moment. See this page about tackling it for example, with quotes such as "95 per cent of secondary school teachers and three quarters of primary school teachers report hearing the phrases ‘you’re so gay’ or ‘that’s so gay’ in their schools". I'm sorry to say that my DS has encountered it, and even sorrier to say that I suspect he has encountered strategic deafness in the teacher who ought to have been stopping it, too.

[ETA: it may well be that many of the children who are using "gay" as an insult do not actually know that the word means homosexual, may not even know that homosexuality exists. That's why I wrote "homophobic language" rather than "homophobia".]

I'll second that.

I'll third it. It's hard enough to struggle to get an appropriate education for your kids, and the advertisting issues makes it even more murky. And the field trips that are really a cover to sign up for sports teams/classes, because the school gets a kick-back.

I feel like basically we have different values than alot of people, nothing against them, we are just a bit more "old-fashioned" with our daughter as far as what she does, watches, reads. I don't really like the direction some of the kids in the neighborhood and older siblings of some of her classmates are headed.

We do make plenty of compromises so she's not a total misfit, but some things are just black and white to us and we have to draw the line. I just remind her that there ARE other kids out there here and there being raised like her (she does meet them at summer day camps and outside classes, and it sounds like there are families out there on this forum) and when she's an adult and making her own money she can make her own choices, but for now we feel that we know what is best for her.

I'm always struggling to edit my mind to find things that I respect the school (i.e. "the system") for but some weeks are definitely worse than others.

Maybe you guys just don't have it too much or at all. You can google "advertising in schools" to get the idea. It can be alot or a little, radio on the school buses, banners, posters, part of the curriculum materials.

I just am finishing the series and my son read them at late 10/early 11. My 7 year old could pick them up and read them and is reading Harry Potter. But I think HG would not be ok for her for at least a few years just because of the sensitive nature of the topic. It's also lead to many great discussions with my 11 year old that wouldn't have worked a couple years ago.

Anyway, I can understand why a parent might not want their children exposed to that series or movie yet. My DS and I are going to see the movie ASAP. We are really excited! No way on the 7 year old. My son could have handled it sooner than my daughter because he's just less sensitive about this kind of thing. So I get that some kids will be fine with it when others aren't. And that some parents will just take their very young kids to the movie without reading it.

My oldest has come back to series over and over and gets new things each time. I think he's read the Harry Potter series 3 or 4 times now.

FTR - I'd prefer my child didn't get bible at school either. We homeschool (secularly) for many reasons.

Here's an example.

The proliferation of companies like Steep Creek Media, which acts as a middleman between districts and would-be advertisers, has made it simpler for schools to get into advertising. Steep Creek offers an attractive proposition for schools — and business is booming, according to its owner and founder, Cynthia Calvert, who represents 35 districts and has had to turn down handfuls of clients.

In exchange for what usually amounts to a cut of 40 percent of the profits, the company lures potential advertisers with a diverse menu of placements: on buses, textbook covers, in-school television monitors, scoreboards and Web sites.

Or try this story.

Instead of placing ads up, some companies provide teachers with curriculum kits that mix educational lessons with frequent references to their products or corporate name. For example, in some communities, children use mathematics worksheets with Disney characters and when done see clips from the video. A nonprofit research group, The Milwaukee Center for the Analysis of Commercialism in Education, recently discovered that these corporate-sponsored classroom materials often subtly steer class lessons in directions advantageous to the sponsor.

Or, just google "Scholastic coal curriculum." Here's a summary:

Environmental groups are going after the world's largest publisher of children's books for teaming up with the American Coal Foundation to produce "The United States of Energy," a lesson plan designed for fourth-graders. The foundation, online at Teachcoal.org, is devoted to creating "coal-related educational materials and programs designed for teachers and students." …

The magazine Rethinking Schools published a scathing critique of the lesson plan in its latest issue, accusing Scholastic of producing "propaganda for the coal industry." They argue that the material "lies through omission" because it doesn't include problems like warming the planet, destroying mountain ranges, killing miners, or causing respiratory problems, to name a few. …

My experience is that there is a lot of preaching about "renewable energy" in the public schools without mentioning how much more expensive it is and other drawbacks such as the unreliability of wind power. Steven Landsburg has described environmentalism in the schools as an intrusive state religion
http://ruby.fgcu.edu/courses/twimberley/EnviroPol/EnviroPhilo/WhyNotEnviro.pdf .