"I don't think parents should be telling schools what they should teach."

[cadoman]

23. my parents complained once when a history teacher integrated religious doctrine into material

Teacher basically wasn't big on the idea of separating church and state and made the kids re-iterate church dogma into history lessons.

It was obviously out of line and I'm glad my parents were monitoring my homework and complained.

Parents have always had input if they were so inclined, and historically the parent teacher relationship has been collaborative. The largest portion of taxes we pay locally goes to school systems and you can bet parents want a bit of control of what goes on with that money. You probably wouldn't have any direct control over the reading materials as a single parent, but if half the kids parents found the material problematic, you could have made something happen.

I'm okay with pretty much any reading material a teacher picks as long as its grade level and kids are allowed to have their own opinions about the material.