Reading, writing, and ... war?

So what are the right times and places for political discussions on campus? Policies differ from district to district, depending on interpretations of the law, legal challenges, and labor contracts. (Because they aren't funded with public dollars, private schools can set greater restrictions on employees.)

While buttons were banned in Evanston, Ill., the American Civil Liberties Union successfully sued the school district in Albuquerque last year after three teachers and a counselor were suspended for posting antiwar materials at area high schools; one put a sign in her classroom window saying "No War Against Iraq." The four educators got paid for their time off.

"Teachers are asked to show students what the lay of the land is regarding a controversial topic like that with regard to different sorts of opinions and attitudes," says Peter Simonson, executive director of the ACLU's New Mexico chapter. "Their responsibilities as teachers shouldn't preclude them from being able to locate themselves on that map, to show students where their own personal opinions lie."

On a different front, the Milwaukee teachers' union just accepted a new district policy forbidding teachers from wearing political buttons in the classroom, although they can continue to wear them in the teachers' lounge. The policy, however, appears to allow war-related buttons, says union attorney Richard Saks.

Some teachers don't think their colleagues should express opinions in front of students if their comments veer toward proselytizing.

The National Education Association, the nation's largest teachers' union, says the classroom shouldn't be a "pulpit," according to assistant general counsel Michael Simpson. New York social science teacher Gloria Sesso agrees and goes even further, saying educators should keep their personal perspectives private.

"You're helping kids to think for themselves," says Ms. Sesso, who teaches at Patchogue-Medford High School in Medford, N.Y. "You provide them with various perspectives, and you look at things you want them to analyze."

World history classes at the school have used the Iraq prison-abuse scandal to examine the role of torture in wartime, she says. In her advanced history class, students looked at the Iraq war through the prism of previous wars and military concepts like preemptive strikes. "The kids are very interested. They like to look at American foreign policy with a perspective," Sesso says. "They get excited about that."

Those same students will probably grow up to read about more disputes over the rights of teachers. As schools remain diverse, the arguments over who's in charge won't go away, says Richard Vacca, a former schoolteacher and senior fellow at the Commonwealth Educational Policy Institute in Richmond, Va.

"The schoolhouse has always been a place where we get our future productive and moral citizens," he says. "This is our baby."

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