What with the WASLs and No Child Left Behind and the need for America to be competitive in the global economy, it’s settled: Kids need to learn.

They need to think, too. The Washington Legislature can reinforce that point by passing Substitute House Bill 1307, a measure that protects freedom of expression for youngsters who work on student publications in the state’s public high schools, colleges and universities. Student journalism is an arena where young people can and should learn the value of bold public discourse. Unfortunately, many administrators get nervous when that happens in their buildings. Too often they restrain expression rather than nourish it. Which is why SHB 1307 is needed.

Nearly 40 years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District that teachers and students retain their First Amendment protection, even inside public school buildings. Subsequent rulings have blurred that assurance with vague definitions for the limited situations in which school officials need to intervene. Under a 1988 decision, restrictions on expression have to be “reasonably related to a legitimate pedagogical concern.” Reasonably? Legitimate?

SHB 1307 would make it much clearer when an administrator could spike articles. The bill spells out circumstances that align essentially with the legal considerations that any newspaper faces.

In most cases, it would be up to student editors to apply the journalistic standards they’d learned and to determine whether to publish a story. Advisers and school administrators could still review student papers before publication, but they couldn’t ban it unless it met specific criteria, as outlined in the box accompanying this editorial.

It’s hardly a radical concept, and it’s already recognized in general under several sections of the body of regulations known as the Washington Administrative Law. Securing the concept in statute is the next step for Washington state to reinforce a First Amendment truth: Freedom of expression means little if it can be used only when authorities approve.

Young people need to know how to study important issues, come to reasoned conclusions and express their points of view effectively. They need to know that speaking out invites opposing viewpoints and sometimes exposes flawed thinking.

That’s all part of engaged citizenship, an activity too few Americans of any age participate in.

As readers of this page will appreciate, a forum where competing viewpoints can battle it out for supremacy sustains democratic values. That’s something young folk need to master as much as factoring polynomials.