Is the fourth "R" spreading too far?

All schools have reading, 'riting, and 'rithmatic. But Larry Kvamme, a zookeeper from Tacoma, Wash., wants a fourth "R" that trumps all the rest: relationships. "If you are not successful in relationships, you are not going to be successful in life," Kvamme says.

Thanks to Kvamme's lobbying efforts, Washington state has a new law requiring the state's Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction to create model family curriculum guidelines. The law prescribes that instruction on developing conflict management skills, communication skills, domestic and dating violence, financial responsibility and parental responsibility be created. "But we do not as an agency mandate curriculum for local districts," says Shirley Skidmore, a spokeswoman for the public instruction superintendent's office. "All local districts have complete authority to make curriculum decisions on all subjects."

Kvamme says he took the idea from Florida, which passed similar legislation, and New Jersey. "We should work with other districts who already have something like this." But Arnold Fege, director of public engagement and advocacy for Public Education Network, says the idea, which other states are mulling, is part of a conservative effort to push their particular moral agenda. His concern is that the law could be divisive. "The next step is for superintendents to go back to the community and educate people about the law and develop consensus to defeat the law or alter it," Fege says.