I don't have any children, but I happen to live in this very same school district, Boyd Co., Ky, in a solidly middle class subdivision. There are about 25 homes in our neighborhood, before the election, there were only 2 of us with the guts to put Bush signs in our yard. There was a 3rd one, but his union thug neighbor intimidated him into removing his sign. I hate to say it, but the ACLU is probably going to have it's way with this school, because from what I observe everyday is that most of the parents here just don't care. Only one family here homeschools their child. The rest of them are so busy "keeping up with the Jones's" and doing everything they can to make their kids "popular". Both of their parents are working 1 or 2 jobs each - so their kids can wear the latest designer clothes & drive the hottest vehicles to school. Most of the teenagers up here are driving new convertibles & hot little SUVs, while their parents are driving the old clunkers. Lots of the parents go to the Elks on weekend nights & get drunk while their kids are having their own drunken parties at home, unattended by any adults (I see this with my own eyes). It all goes back to what I think is the biggest problem in America today - BAD PARENTING. We may live in a conservative red state, but I have to believe Bush won here because of the war on terror - I don't see much evidence of family values here - truthfully - it looks more like "Desperate Housewives" than anything else. The kids in my neighborhood are spoiled beyond belief, they throw their fast food litter & beer cans out of the windows by the side of the road & don't even care that they are crapping their own neighborhood. They haven't been taught any different I'm sorry to say.
I agree that the root of the problem is poor parenting. We are reaping the whirlwind of sowing to the wind in the 60's and 70's. The so-called "counter-culture" of the 60's and 70's has produced that which we see now. the ones who were counter-culture in that time are now the ones pursuing the Almighty Dollar, the very thing they decried back then. As Pogo said in the cartoon strip, "We have met the enemy, and he is us!". What goes around, comes around.