I thought this Los Angeles Daily News opinion piece by Assemblyman Roger Nielo raised an interesting point. Are teachers intentionally using children in their advocacy efforts?

As vice-chair of the Assembly Budget Committee, I receive many letters of concern about California's budget from across the state, which I expect and welcome. However, the current budget situation has introduced me to an alarming advocacy tactic. Some schools have discovered - and exploited - a whole new cadre of lobbyists: third-grade students.

Recently, I began receiving numerous handwritten letters from classrooms across California about the education budget. What troubles me about some of these letters is their coerced and fear-injected tone.

Consider a few excerpts, and bear in mind that the letters from each individual classroom bore striking similarities in subject matter, suggesting that their content was coached.

A watercolor of two children crying, saying "We'd be sad if you took our money away."

A picture of four children, crying, standing on the playground. "Please don't take money from our school or we can't play ball wall and we want our class room aide, Kamala and we won't have drawing and writing supplies, and our art teacher Jan and our music teacher Mr. Sousa."

A letter begging not to close the child's school, noting that this school "is very special because, it is close to our homes, it has the best teachers, and we do many fun learning activities."

It concerns me more that these youngsters would in some way feel responsible for their school's financial situation. I have to wonder what kind of information these children are being given.

Are they being told the ramifications of a tax increase? Are they being informed of the recent economic climate and how the economy generally runs in cycles? How much information are they receiving about the other major areas funded in the state budget, such as funding for public safety and aid to vulnerable populations?

Involving schoolchildren in this capacity is manipulative at best and psychologically damaging at worst.

I can't help but agree with Assemblyman Nielo. I wonder how much time these teachers are taking from classroom instruction in the content standards to create these little advocacy pictures. In my mind, this is an abuse of the teacher - student relationship. If it matches the curriculum and teachers want to present both sides of a political issue for classroom discussion, I don't have a problem. Where I think they've crossed a line is when they only present one side or present both sides and ridicule the position they don't share.

I believe the best journalists are those who make such an effort to be fair that you are unable to determine their own position on an issue. I believe that good teachers should be the same way. Of course teachers are entitled to their own political views, but they need to keep those views out of their classroom. Students should be allowed to hear both sides and make their own decisions. That's an important skill that these students probably aren't going to learn from their teacher.