How does moral education work and why is it valuable in the society?

Moral education in a public school is quite tricky, since so much of morality is religion-based, and religion has no place in public education unless it is being studied as a phenomenon of culture or as part of the underpinnings of literature.  In the United States, there are many religions, and none should be able to dominate in a school for the purposes of moral training.  Just one example shows this quite clearly.  In Judaism,...

Moral education in a public school is quite tricky, since so much of morality is religion-based, and religion has no place in public education unless it is being studied as a phenomenon of culture or as part of the underpinnings of literature.  In the United States, there are many religions, and none should be able to dominate in a school for the purposes of moral training.  Just one example shows this quite clearly.  In Judaism, the prohibition is "Do not do unto others what you do not want done to you," while in Christianity, there is an active prescription to "Do unto others what you would have done unto you." There is a world of difference in these approaches. The former tells you what not to do, leaving the individual to make the choice what to do, while the second tells you what you should do.  Besides, the fact that you want something done to you does not mean that someone else would find that to be a desirable or pleasurable experience. It is as though you were buying a birthday gift for someone because it is what you wanted.  The point is that religions differ in their approaches to morality, sometimes in very subtle ways, and trying to inculcate students in a public school with some sort of watered down compromise is ineffective.  Moral education should be in the home and in the house of worship.