School's anti-war assignment canceled

Sandy Cullen reports in the Wisconsin State Journal that school district officials canceled a letter-writing assignment given third-graders at Allis Elementary School. Students had been assigned to write a letter a day for twelve days.

Letters were to go to other students, the state's U.S. senators and representatives, President Bush, and the secretary of the United Nations urging them to "join our press for peace." If the war were not over in 12 days, the sequence would be repeated.

A ten teacher team developed the project.

The letter sent home to parents last Friday said third-graders at Allis Elementary School would be "writing letters to encourage an end to the war in Iraq. The letter writing will teach civic responsibility, a social studies standard, while providing an authentic opportunity to improve composition skills and handwriting."