When I was a classroom teacher I worked very hard to be non-partisan, that is, I never gave my political opinion, rather I tried to answer questions and provide information from all sides. My goal was to help my students discover and defend their points of view. I'm sure I was not 100% successful in this, but usually my students were a 50/50 split on my views when they tried to guess.
I feel I should do the same now, as a consultant. That said, I found this article very compelling. While it is clearly taking a position on Palin, it is also positing what I think is a valid argument about merit and its role in politics and society as a whole. I think the debate with students could be very interesting.
http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentID=15383
