Education: How to Protect Tender Minds

Are Aristotle and Machiavelli too tough for tenth-graders?

The principal had a stern warning for English Teacher Cyril Lang: the books he was teaching were not approved for tenth-graders by the school system's curriculum experts. Some parents had complained as well. But Lang went right on using the books in his classes at Charles W. Woodward High School in the plush suburb of Rockville, Md. Lang even based exams on them. School Superintendent Edward Andrews took that as "insubordination and misconduct in office." Last October he asked that Lang be suspended without pay, a...

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