This month school bells ring in a new year. Time to remember what education is, and was. Time to salute how it should mean reading writing, and arithmetic. That, and a great deal more.

I grew up in the late 1950s and early '60s - a time when public school focused on the basics - education by rote; memorize till you learn. It wasn't easy - but it worked in humanities and science and American history. You inhaled information till you assimilated knowledge.

Back then, we knew who ran the show: the teacher, not student. We were there to learn - not partake in sensitivity training. Forget outcome-based education, or the lunacy called self-esteem. Our teachers knew that self-esteem doesn't cause achievement. Achievement leads to self-esteem.

Public schools of the Ike-JFK era taught ethics and citizenship. No talk of diversity, or the hyphenated American. As Americans, we primed for new frontiers. No talk of dumbing down. If we made mistakes, we were expected to fess up. Teachers didn't ask, "What can government do for you?" - but rather, what we could for ourselves - by ourselves.

What a difference from 2001. At age nine, we didn't get free condoms. We were, however, free to say a prayer. We weren't taught that America was racist or imperialistic. We did say a daily Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag.

Ask any then-public school student. We weren't taught that values were relative, or situational - but that wrong was bad, right was good, and that both were defined in the Good Book - a book public schools shun like lepers at a bazaar.

In public school, we learned discipline, shame, guilt, and responsibility. If we failed, administrators told our parents - and our parents backed them up. Again, how different from today's "What, my child?" mindless Baby Boom response. Today, many students are taught, "Nothing is as wonderful as I." Back then, we learned to respect other people - and that character was not something you have. Character is something you are.

Today, apologists for the status quo base '01 education on '60s values. If it feels good, do it. Make Johnnie feel good about himself. Above all, "More money," they chant as in a mantra. To which former Education Secretary William Bennett answers: "Over the last 30 years, we've spent more money on education than ever before and what did we get?" Declining test scores, soaring violence, coarseness, and illegitimacy - and raising support, as shown in a recent Gallup Poll, for tuition vouchers, charter schools, and school choice.

I grew up in a public school. Both my parents were public school teachers. I went to college in a public school - SUNY at Geneseo. All that is within me yearns for what public education once meant, and pray God can be again.

This will demand higher standards and more humility - asking more of ourselves than a universe of others. Only then can public education do what it did before morality was kicked out the schoolyard door: First, enrich the human mind and soul. Second, spur the unity of purpose that lifts America as a whole.

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