The paradigm-shifting reforms of the LEARNS Act, and its predictable oppositions, inspired me to update a column I wrote 25 years ago, called "10 Commandments for Education."

They were based on unspoken but well-understood cornerstone principles that had long shaped American public schools as true institutions of learning. As federal and state education bureaucracies ballooned, new demands were placed on schools that often ran contrary to the tenets of teaching.

Special-interest activists and social re-engineering proponents began focusing on schools because 1. they saw dollar signs as education spending soared, and 2. because students become voters, classrooms became targets for introducing radical and experimental ideas under the guise of "critical thinking," etc.

Revisiting these commandments may help re-center discussions on the timeless and immutable truths of teaching.

I. Thou shalt not disrupt class. The vogue term for student disruption, disobedience and disrespect is now "behavioral management," but regardless of linguistic veneer, discipline is vital to classroom instruction.

There was a time when public and private schools essentially mirrored each other in maintaining discipline. Today, there's a Grand Canyon divide between the two. Private school teachers spend almost no time dealing with discipline, while public school teachers on average report it to be a weekly distraction, or even a daily........

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