Yes, I mean agreed-upon civic values, however, having not been out of high school very long (we'll just say that I graduated in the last ten years), I noticed that moral discussions tended to be skipped over, because the teachers knew that our classes had people of multiple backgrounds, and didn't want the students to bring up where or how they'd learned the moral--because in a lot of cases people do learn morals from religious teaching, and they didn't want ANY religion mentioned. Rather than talk about basic morals in a general way, students were just told--"You can read that part on your own time, to avoid the discussion that will probably arise." Personally, I would rather the subjects had been brought up, and let the students voice their opinions and differences. I think the students could have had great discussions coming to their own conclusions about what is morally right despite what religion you are. But the fear of having religion talked about in the classroom was so great, that those discussions were pushed aside, so the school could be "politically correct".

I also felt that students were all but forced to ignore their spirituality, rather than embracing that part of themselves. It's an important part of a person, whether they are "religious" or not, but it tended to be squelched in school, rather than fed. Comments like, "we can't talk about that part of your opinion because you learned it in a religious setting" were made. If ALL students could voice their moral (religious or not) concerns, I believe overall acceptance of those morals would be higher.

Also, religious or not, people's values in general do differ. However, it's almost to the point of asinine as to what we'll allow to happen to the children of our future. For example, a friend of mine is a current teacher (elementary level), but when she tries to tie in motivation to the students for them to want to learn, she actually has parents come in complaining that that isn't her place. One (sad) comment made was, "I didn't graduate from high school, I never learned this stuff you're making my child learn, and I'm fine." This parent was currently living on public assistance and addicted to many substances, but he was "the parent" and she needed to respect his wishes and let the child float by and just meet minimum standards required legally. Teachers used to be able to make a difference in a child's life, but are even getting yelled at for trying to teach motivation. Obviously, this is not everywhere, but my examples are each from different cities, as I've moved about three times in the past six years (to completely different parts of the country).