As hard (or easy) as it may be to believe, the education establishment in North Carolina is proposing new standards that would eliminate the teaching of any American history prior to 1877 to high school seniors.

Yes, really.

Of course, the people pushing these changes have a perfectly logical explanation...

We are certainly not trying to go away from American history," Rebecca Garland, the chief academic officer for North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, told Fox News. "What we are trying to do is figure out a way to teach it where students are connected to it, where they see the big idea, where they are able to make connections and draw relationships between parts of our history and the present day."

To what extent does a school's authority extend beyond the school yard?

A Saratoga Springs, NY seventh grader may help formalize these boundaries.

According to TimesUnion.com, a state trooper interdicted the lad at Maple Avenue Middle school, informing that biking and even walking to school were against the rules.

A school might discourage biking to school by refusing to provide accommodations such as storage facilities and might even prevent pupils from perambulating away from the premises in the evening unaccompanied by an adult.

But on what legal ground can they decree by which mode of locomotion students arrive for instruction unless there is a formalized legislative statute banning those of a certain age from utilizing public sidewalks irrespective of destination?

Perhaps the greatest issue of concern here is law enforcement being summoned to enforce the policy whim of bureaucrats in jurisdictions beyond their stipulated purview.

For if this is not stopped now, what is to prevent educators by threatening through the barrel of the gun upon which police decisions ultimately rely from deciding what else goes on while your children are in your own care such as what they eat, what they watch on TV, and even what you as a parent are permitted to believe in terms of politics and religion?

By Frederick Meekins