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but this is a good piece in Education Week about the "delicate balance" teachers must make in the classroom with regard to Iraq and other controversial issues.

To me the issue is cut and dried: teachers, because of the powerful influence they exert on students, MUST at ALL times refrain from propagandizing to their students about controversial issues. It doesn't matter at all if the teachers are liberal, conservative, middle-of-the-road, or apolitical. Teachers should be facilitators for students expressing their views in an atmosphere where their views will be respected. At no time should a teacher express his or her opinions or tell students how he or she voted in an election. It isn't a matter of "academic freedom," a fiction when it comes to elementary and secondary education. As for post-secondary education, by the time a student is college-age, he or she has pretty much developed intellectually, so teachers on that level can express points of view (though common sense should still guide them). However, high school and younger students still aren't intellectually developed, and teachers have to be extremely careful what they say in the classroom. They have to assume that EVERYTHING they say in the classroom will be repeated outside the classroom, and often parents will hear about what is said.

I have no sympathy for teachers who think they are being "censored" for their opinions. To that I say "tough shit." Find another occupation such as pundit to be paid for expressing opinions. That market is impossible to crack, however.