You have to welcome their arguing with you, not to the point of disrespect, but if they are going to stand up for themselves, they need to learn to argue effectively,
You have to give them unconditional love. They need to know that even if they screw up, you love them. You don`t want them to grow up and resent you or, even worse, parent the way you parented them.
When test scores go up, we should worry, because of how poor a measure they are of what matters, and what you typically sacrifice in a desperate effort to raise scores.
What is equally striking to me is this ... there isn`t a sense of a community solving problems together, rather there`s punishment for aberrant individuals.