The parents of San Francisco kindergarteners are fed up with a school choice system that doesn’t really let them choose and they’re speaking up.

This fall, Denver Public Schools will introduce the Mile High Parent Campaign, which encourages moms and dads to devote 5,280 minutes a year to their children’s educations. Cities situated at lower elevations are advised not to emulate the plan.

In other news from my hometown, ProComp, widely touted as the nation’s model merit pay plan, is provoking some nasty skirmishes between district and union leaders.

A new AP poll out today spends some time asking respondents about the state of public schools. The approximately 1,700 adults gave their opinions about how well schools prepare kids for college, how safe schools are, etc. etc. The Wall Street Journal’s Real Time Economics blog has an interesting take on the relationship between education and economic productivity (which lends itself to exploring how Americans view their kids schools vs. everyone else’s), but other results deserve some attention.

According to the poll, both the general population and parents think students should spend more time studying math (38% and 40%, respectively) and English (21% and 21%, respectively). The next most popular subject? History and government, says the general population (10% apiece), and “other” (10%) say the parents. Sure it makes sense that they’d want more time devoted to math and English, the bread and butter of our standardized testing system, but yikes. These results don’t exactly give much hope to the push to keep the liberal arts in the curriculum. And one has to wonder what exactly these “other” subjects are, considering the survey lists choices in just about every major subject.

Another disturbing result: 70% of the general population and 69% of parents think classroom work and homework are the best way to measure student achievement (as opposed to test scores). Fair enough; it’s easy to see how mom and dad can understand Johnny’s A on a test in a vacuum, but there’s no telling how his A measures up to his peers domestically and abroad. These same respondents are worried about international competitiveness (over 90% of both groups say U.S. schools are “just keeping up with” or “falling behind” the rest of the world). Yet while these parents are looking down their noses at standardized tests, they’d like to see more time spent on math and English—and more than likely that’s not because they want Johnny to keep up those straight A’s.

Eight-hundred and thirty-three general population adults and 854 parents of school-aged children took this Gates-funded survey. They may be only a small slice of America, but the contradictions presented in their responses are certainly worth a thoughtful look.

Joseph Epstein is incisive; his writing eschews faddish notions and also goes for the jugular. He won’t dance around a topic. His latest Weekly Standard piece, “The Kindergarchy,” is a fine example.

In America we are currently living in a Kindergarchy, under rule by children. People who are raising, or have recently raised, or have even been around children a fair amount in recent years will, I think, immediately sense what I have in mind. Children have gone from background to foreground figures in domestic life, with more and more attention centered on them, their upbringing, their small accomplishments, their right relationship with parents and grandparents.

The article is well worth reading. One concludes, after digesting it and other similar pieces, that today’s parents are meddling with the wrong parts of their children’s lives and staying out of the parts that demand attention. Epstein notes that a 21st-Century adult is keen to arrange his progeny’s activities, playdates, and daily decisions, but loath to provide any stern guidance or discipline when needed. The result: A lot of spoiled, babied, charmless young adults who don’t think for themselves and feel entitled to everything.

Epstein generalizes. But then, generalizing is often useful. And who can deny that America’s public schools, too, have succumbed to the daffy thinking he skewers? I think, for example, of the misguided notion to push academically untalented students into AP classes; to push all kids into college (and no, that’s not a straw man; some big-name people do think all kids should go to college); to eliminate competition, not between schools but between students, that might leave some pupils disappointed; and on and on.

Where has this idea shift brought us? If Mark Bauerlein is to be believed, it’s actually caused a regression and spawned a land of self-absorbed, self-confident 20-somethings who know little. Epstein’s points aren’t new, but might they not be true?

P.S. I suppose, to avoid retribution from social justice crusaders, I should add a disclaimer: Does not apply to lots of poor and minority children.

Books like this are fine, but it’s incorrect (title of book in question notwithstanding) to see them as diagnosing a “national problem.” The temptation exists, of course, to find in their stories reflections of a country in which high school students don’t eat lunch (no time!), in which parents will not remove themselves from their children’s sides, in which kids are coddled and pampered and showered with gold stars for the straight-A’s they receive. But what really ail U.S. youth are not the products of too much parental involvement, but the products of not enough parental involvement—more specifically, not enough solid guidance from adults (teachers, coaches, mentors, etc.).

The reviewer makes another smart point:

...even as parents obsessively strap bike helmets on their kids’ heads and squirt antiseptic gels on their hands, the adults themselves cavalierly break up families with divorce and tolerate the rampant sexualization of prepubescent girls. In short, we’re focusing on the wrong risks.

True. What most worries me, though: Did they really wrap up that kid in yellow caution tape?