Three "bugaboos" frighten schools to the degree that they do not use common sense to implement values education curricula in the public schools. These bugaboos are the problematic issues of prayer, piety, and pluralism. They are not necessarily barriers. School administrators and boards of education should inform themselves so they will be able to avoid their problematic aspects when developing values education programs. Common sense suggests that any human society must teach values to children. Schools cannot avoid transmitting values to students. The "how to" of moral education, though, often requires more than common sense. Direct instruction in what the school views as right and wrong, including the value dimensions of the hidden curriculum, will work only if a relationship of mutual respect exists between a school and its students. Self-image is a key to moral development. Citizenship education should be based on instruction in history and, to some extent, philosophy, and not on the obsolete and ineffective standard civics course. Perhaps the most useful contribution public schools could make to the religious development of young people is to teach them some epistemology, which would help them understand that many different kinds of truth exist and are important, and that schools are limited in their ability to address certain truths. (RH)