Americans push their kids harder in sports than school

Mark Perry for AEIdeas: There's a dichotomy and inconsistency among many of today's American parents. Many parents aren't afraid to push their children really hard when it comes to athletics and emphasize the connection between hard work and athletic achievement. Strict standards, scores, times, and rankings are accepted as necessary and accurate measures of athletic success.

Any type of cheating in sports is unacceptable to parents and coaches and would be met with strict consequences. Hard work, effort, and athletic success are more important to most parents than athletic self-esteem.

On the other hand, many of today's parents in the U.S. don't push their children very hard when it comes to academics, they don't necessarily believe in the connection between effort and academic achievement, and don't believe that academic success is within the reach of any student willing to work hard for it. Establishing and enforcing strict academic standards has given way to less challenging curricula that emphasize self-esteem and vague concepts like "social justice" over academic excellence.

Parents now complain to teachers and administrators if their children are disciplined for cheating and expect inflated grades and report-card mercy. Many high schools no longer have a valedictorian or have dozens of them, rendering the valedictorian distinction meaningless, all in the name of greater self-esteem. That diffusion and degradation of academic excellence would never be tolerated in sports, where there are still state champions, state rankings for sports teams, and state records for sports like track and swimming.

E-smoke'em if you got'em

Nicholas John for the R Street Institute: Historically, American tobacco control policy has been based on the premise that all tobacco products are hazardous and that none can offer personal or public health benefits. However, peer-reviewed research by the United Kingdom's Royal College of Physicians has demonstrated that e-cigarettes are significantly safer than cigarettes, which continue to be both the most widely used and the most harmful tobacco products on the market.