Red Pen Lunacy

Apparently, red pens have fallen from favor in grade school circles -- seeing red ink on their papers has been deemed too distressing for today's sensitive youths and their parents.

In response, sales of purple pens are soaring. It's supposedly a "less negative" color. So help me understand. The big problem with American grade schools is the color of the pens teachers use to correct papers. Is this a joke?

Sadly, it's not. It's the latest manifestation in the ill-begotten "self-esteem" obsession of too many grade schools today. Ignoring evidence that there is no correlation between self-esteem and academic performance (in fact, there may even be an inverse correlation), the schools continue to pursue a touchy-feely agenda that does nothing to prepare children for either advanced study or for life generally.

To paraphrase Martin Luther King: What's important isn't the color of the pen, it's the character of the comments (or the grade) on the paper.