Another pointless
Pledge bill?
Gimme a break
I see our House Republicans are busy making themselves busy again.
In the true spirit of reinventing the wheel, our Rep. Doug Magnus has authored a bill that would require all students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in the classroom at least once a week.
Reciting the Pledge in the classroom is a time-honored tradition that teaches students patriotism to their country. I feel it’s an important ritual that should be continued for centuries to come.
Children need to understand the importance of honoring the flag and the freedoms it represents — freedom that was fought for by men and women who paid for it with their lives.
But it shouldn’t have to be mandated by law.
There are countless classroom traditions I feel strongly about, but I wouldn’t introduce legislation requiring schools to offer kindergarten naps or milk breaks. There are some things we should simply trust our local school boards and teachers to implement out of common sense.
I realize there are some Minnesota schools (obviously lacking this common sense) that have banned the Pledge of Allegiance due to its reference to God.
But this law wouldn’t change the rules in these districts anyway.
The proposed legislation permits schools to opt out of the pledge requirement with a simple majority vote of the local school board. It would also allow any student who objects to participating in the Pledge to be excused without penalty.
On the flip side, families in districts where the Pledge is banned need only lobby their school board members to get the rule changed.
These options at the local level already exist.
Our representatives in St. Paul don’t need to waste their time micromanaging classroom activities.
Rerun of a rerun
If this column sounds like a rerun, that’s because it is.
But so is the bill. And it doesn’t make any more sense now than it did when it was introduced last year at this time.
It’s the sort of happy, feel-good legislation that lawmakers fall all over themselves to sign on to. I just hope our new governor sees through the popularity contest that our former governor saw when he vetoed it last time around.
Our representatives need to get the message that we want them working on practical legislation that will actually help us, not on re-introducing failed bills that serve only to improve their political reputations.
If patriotism is truly the goal, I would call on our lawmakers to work instead on protecting education funding so that students can continue receiving adequate instruction on, say, the history of our great nation.
