I read the proposed standards. If these standards are implemented anything like SOL standards (and they're written quite similarly), then schools will be required to follow them very closely and thoroughly.

It's a bit baffling why a school's academic accreditation should be tied to how well they're implementing standards requiring 14-year-olds “predicting how my own actions might affect the feelings of others.” Have you met a 14-year-old recently? They can't accurately predict how they're parents or siblings will react and they've lived with them for years.

Are we to believe 12-year-olds can have the perspective and wisdom of years to “recognize and describe unfairness and injustice in many forms including attitudes, speech, behaviors, policies, practices, and laws.” They barely know what laws are, much less the blessing of a complicated system of making them. How many teachers read our laws?

These standards expect high school students to “consistently use coping skills and calming strategies to effectively respond to stress and return to a regulated state.” Would “calming strategies” include Scripture reading and prayer? Why not, when it already includes eastern mystical breathing exercises? This so-called “regulated state” is very zen, and not in a metaphorical sense, but in a metaphysical sense.

Why are we encouraging students to “express pride”? Pride “goes before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18). Pride was the original sin of Satan (Isaiah 14:14). God resists the proud (Proverbs 3:34; James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5).

Schools are the front lines when it comes to dealing with early onset of difficult behaviors in young people and the culture at large. The problem is not a lack of education. The problem is not trauma. The problem is sinfulness in the heart of man. Anything that denies or displaces that understanding makes dealing with these problems worse, not better.

There is one thing that should be very clear in these proposed standards: This is an open door to any system of belief, other than Christianity and the Word of God, in Virginia public schools.