South Dakota students must take three “units” of social studies to graduate from high school. One unit must be on U.S. history; a half unit must be in U.S. government. That means one semester in a school with a traditional seven- or eight-period daily schedule, or a mere nine weeks in a school like Aberdeen Central with block scheduling.
Is nine weeks enough time to understand local, state, and federal government and our obligation in a constitutional republic to participate in those institutions?
That meager half-unit requirement in South Dakota is still better than in Rhode Island, which has no civics requirement. Rhode Island’s latest high school graduation standards include three units of social studies but appear to leave it up to local schools to decide whether to include government.
Some Rhode Island kids from pre-school through grade 12 appear as plaintiffs in a lawsuit against their governor, legislative leaders, and state board of education contending that Rhode Island’s failure to provide “an adequate education for capable civic participation violates their constitutional rights under the Equal Protection, Privileges and Immunities and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Sixth and Seventh Amendments and violates the guarantee that they will live in a state with a republican form of government under Article Four, Section Four of the United States Constitution.” The lawsuit contends that Rhode Island has “downgraded the teaching of social studies and civics, focusing in recent decades on basic reading and math instruction and on the economic value of education to individual students.”
After far too many general observations about national test scores and surveys about civic participation, the plaintiffs eventually get down to some specific contentions about their schools’ failure to educate citizens in public affairs:
[67]a. The social studies courses that Plaintiff M.S. has taken in high school presented a limited number of formal facts about American governmental institutions, failed to show how these institutions actually do or should function to promote democratic values and did not inform students of how these institutions relate to his future role as an active, informed citizen;
b. Plaintiff A.C. has attended schools in Providence since her elementary years and has never received meaningful instruction in civics or civic values. On information and belief, none of her teachers have been trained or had any education or professional development in the teaching of civics. Neither the state, the school district nor her school has ever required her to take a test or any assessment of her knowledge of civics;
c. Plaintiffs A.F. and R.F. have not received any dedicated civics instruction in the Woonsocket Public Schools throughout their time enrolled.
d. Students with special education needs like Plaintiff I.M. in the Cranston Public Schools do not receive adequate instruction in history, American government and civics or adequate extracurricular experiences geared to their special learning needs that will prepare them to function productively as civic participants as adults [A.C. et al. v Raimondo et al, Class Action Complaint, U.S. District Court of Rhode Island, 2018.11.28, p. 22].
The lawsuit cites racial disparities in language arts test scores to further contend that Rhode Island is failing to educate minority students to the same level as white students in the verbal and critical thinking skills necessary for “democratic deliberation.” The plaintiffs argue that Rhode Island schools provide neither enough technology nor enough training to teachers to coach students in the media literacy skills necessary to use the Internet to research and engage in effective civic discourse.
The lawsuit offers various grounds for action:
- Fourteenth Amendment: denying students the education necessary to participate equally in civic affairs (voting, jury duty, free speech, etc.).
- Sixth and Seventh Amendment: denying education necessary to serve on juries and to provide all defendants with educated juries of their peers.
- Article Four, Section Four: failing to guarantee a “Republican Form of Government.”
This is a federal case, in which the plaintiffs are clearly trying to set a national precedent. That national focus perhaps explains why they don’t bother to invoke Rhode Island’s own constitution, Article 12 of which says the diffusion of knowledge and virtue is “essential to the preservation of [the people’s] rights an liberties” and obliges the general assembly “to promote public schools and public libraries….” This language echoes South Dakota’s Article 8 Section 1, which more forcefully asserts the Legislature’s duty to “establish and maintain a general and uniform system of public schools wherein tuition shall be without charge, and equally open to all” to maintain “The stability of a republican form of government,” which depends on “the morality and intelligence of the people….”
This class action lawsuit could refute itself. If Rhode Island students are capable of filing, arguing, and winning a class action lawsuit, they are evidently really well educated in civics. But if they win, the plaintiffs want the court to declare education for civic duties a constitutional right and to enjoin Rhode Island “from failing to adopt such laws, regulations policies and practices as are necessary to ensure” this right [I’d like a rewrite on that—about enjoining the defendants to take specific action instead of telling them to not not do something?]. They’d also like attorneys’ fees.
The Center for Educational Equity at Teachers College, Columbia University, is helping the kids with this lawsuit.
A Pearson survey found that, in 2012, America’s education system ranked 17th out of 40 nations surveyed. Every nation ranking above us has a constitutionally or statutory right to education. In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court narrowly ruled against using the Equal Protection Clause to challenge school funding formulas but left open the question of whether there is an implied right to education anywhere in our Constitution. The current lawsuit comes at establishing that right from a different angle:
In focusing on civics, the lawyers behind Cook v. Raimondo hope that they can appeal not just to liberals who are more inclined toward the establishment of a national right to education, but also to conservatives who’ve long advocated for improved civics education, which is often touted as a nonpartisan issue. “It’s a creative, shrewd effort to cobble together a coalition of liberals and conservatives,” says Justin Driver, a professor of law at the University of Chicago and the author of the new book The Schoolhouse Gate: Public Education, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for the American Mind. Driver, who wasn’t involved in Cook, pointed to the fact that the retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who was appointed by Ronald Reagan, has dedicated her life after retiring from the bench to promoting civic learning [Alia Wong, “The Students Suing for a Constitutional Right to Education,” The Atlantic, 2018.11.28].
One can see the point: The Constitution guarantees rights whose effective exercise depends on educated citizens. Denying citizens access to effective civics education seems to deny them rights as surely as barricading the courthouse doors on election day. Rhode Island’s and South Dakota’s constitutions agree that we have to educate people to make a constitutional republic work.
But notice that we forbid literacy tests for voters. Education certainly makes democracy work better, but we don’t ban uneducated people from participating (hence, Trump).
The right to education should be patently obvious, and I agree wholeheartedly that we should spend far more time than a semester discussing the Constitution, government, and tools of democracy in our K-12 schools. (Make every student join debate in high school, and the problem is solved!) But I’m not sure we can write this specific graduation requirement into the Constitution. Even the Rhode Island lawsuit seems unclear on the outcomes it seeks from the court or how we would implement an implied right to education in any way differing from current practice.
I’m not sure if the suit has a good chance of succeeding, but it’s hard to argue that Americans need LESS civics education. OTOH, Americans would probably benefit from better World Geography and World History training as well, based on poor performance in those areas. Some have advocated for “financial literacy” education in HS, as well, and I guess I wouldn’t argue against that either.
It becomes a “robbing Peter to pay Paul” situation, in terms of time spent in various subjects. I see a lot of value in music education, physical education, art education, etc. But those curriculums would be the first targets of those wanting to remove subjects to make room for more classes.
School-sponsored sports programs are a lot harder to defend, in terms of public money and student time spent. I know there is a level of equity provided for low-income athletes, but it isn’t justifiable from an educational standpoint IMHO.
Students that are falling behind should be provided after-school programs to catch up, instead of after-school football practice.
In a similar vein- from Sheila Kennedy today-
https://www.sheilakennedy.net/2018/12/what-we-can-do/
Kids not only need to learn how gubmint is supposed to work, they should be ale to register to vote as Seniors or of age Juniors in school. Make it mandatory.
TAG, I once went through South Dakota’s NCLB (pre-Common Core) 120-some high school English standards. I found that the extracurricular speech activities I was coaching fulfilled two-thirds of those standards—and that was without my getting creative and stretching definitions. I would challenge any sports coach to show a similar alignment between her extracurricular activity and the curriculum standards.
Civics is enormously important. I don’t think we can do it justice just by plunking another required semester class into the high school curriculum. Part of being a good citizen is being a well-rounded person, having lots of diverse experiences and encountering a variety of intellectual fields that will help young people understand the perspectives of people with different interests and backgrounds. One can thus argue that electives (the classes we crowd out every time we get a bee in our bonnet and impose one more required class) contribute to civics education.
The best civics education is holistic and integrated in all the classes we teach.
In social studies classes, teachers should look for ways to tie history, geography, and economics to higher-level question about how the facts and theories we’re learning affect our community and inform the actions we should take as citizens and the laws we should make.
In English classes, we should read great and diverse literature, ask students what they learn from it, and challenge students to write and speak about what those lessons say about us and how we should treat each other. (Example: teach The Grapes of Wrath and engage students in conversations about agricultural policy, immigration, welfare, communism, and democratic decision-making.) We should also have students read diverse non-fiction—newspapers, magazines, research articles, and practice critical evaluation of sources, data, and arguments.
In science classes, the curriculum writes itself: ask students to research, discuss, and write about the environment, technological development, human health and nutrition, and the interactions of those topics with government, business, and morality. Throw in a couple units on nuclear physics, asteroids, and how to use the former to stop the latter from destroying the Earth.
High school debate fuses all of those activities. We read and listen critically. We speak and write with intense attention to audience and anticipation of challenges to our contentions. We constantly write and rewrite our arguments based on what we learn in ongoing research and in competition (like when we get our butts handed to us by a team that throughly researched a topic that we’d never heard of). We reach for evidence from politics, law, economics, engineering, biology, psychology, history, and philosophy.
The students best prepared to preserve the Republic with the tools this lawsuit talks about are high school debaters. This lawsuit doesn’t answer the question of what practical steps we would need to take to uphold the constitutional right to civics education that this lawsuit hopes the court will affirm. But I’m ready with answer: make every student in every high school participate in ten extracurricular debate tournaments against students from other schools.
And make ’em wear neckties, every one. Debate tournaments should be as serious as going to court and defending your freedom… because, really, that’s what debaters learn to do.
I have noticed that way to many students graduating to day think communism is better than capitalism but have know idea what capitalism is or that how bad communist and socialist governments are. Those students that do understand capitalism generally get knowledge from parents or businesses where they may work and get exposed to the working of finances. Check out the states with the least knowledge of government and you will find the are far left Democratic, actually socialist and communist,
I think our education system focuses on many of the wrong things, and this lawsuit is a good way to raise attention about that.
I don’t think mike’s idea of forcing every student to register to vote is a good idea because I don’t like too many things being mandatory. Honestly, I lean towards the idea that if somebody doesn’t think voting is important, they are probably going to do more damage than good if they did vote.
Cory obviously thinks debate is a great thing, but I don’t necessarily think it’s as universally useful as he does. You talk about passion and intense attention, but that is because your students want to be in debate. Trap somebody who wants to be outdoors golfing or running track in your classroom another few hours per week and watch their morale sink to new lows. Debate is probably great, but it isn’t for everybody.
I’m sure people learn lots of great things from football, too, like teamwork and overcoming adversity and improving at something with practice, but it doesn’t make sense to force the debate nerds to push the tackle dummies around with the meatheads, either.
Ryan, I won’t force anyone to go to the courthouse to register to vote. But would you accept automatically registering every high school graduate?
Civics is great. Not every student may feel passion for and want to pay intense attention to civics. But should we require them to do so?
I think the case for lessons learned in football is exaggerated. We learn teamwork and overcoming adversity in speech activities in equal measure to what can be learned in football. Speech activities then satisfy specific learning objectives in the skills I outlined above in my cross-disciplinary suggestions that get zero treatment in any extracurricular sport.
Pushing tackling dummies is not a frequently exercised life skill. Speaking in front of others, analyzing evidence and arguments, and disagreeing in a civil and logical fashion are frequently exercised life skills.
I share your distaste for forcing anyone to do anything, Ryan. But if we must require some things of our children for the sake of their education, I can make a stronger case for requiring everyone to debate as a full-year academic course than I can for everyone to play football for an entire academic year.
Football develops leadership and character. Many great men played football. Not that there’s anything wrong with theatre and choir and declamming but golly, they’re not football. People love football.
In Sioux Falls in the 1960s students got a good dose of civics in 9th grade, I believe, and then senior year we had American Government. This was, of course, before 18-year-olds could vote. I would think it would be much more important with the earlier voting age.
I agree with these students and I like that they are actually wanting more courses in academic areas, but I question the federal jurisdiction. It will be a pretty bad idea to set a precedent to federalize such curriculum decisions. Those decisions should be state and local. I would think a federal court might shut down the case, based on federalism issues. These students should go to the right jurisdiction: the state or local authorities. I wonder if they went through these other routes.
I just finished reading “My Beautiful World,” Sonia Sotomayor’s autobiography. She grew up dirt poor but participated in something similar to debate, though it had a different name. More than once she described how the research skills she learned there and the ability to dispassionately examine both sides of an issue stood her in good stead throughout her life. Justice Sotomayor used those skills at Princeton, Yale, in the DA’s office and now on SCOTUS. Worked out pretty well for her.
When I taught in the 70s and 80s social studies was my field. I wanted to teach 2 years of American History because it was impossible to do it justice in 1. Now, being older and wiser and the world being smaller, I’d want 4 years of World and American History and a full year of civics/government.
I’d fit that in, in addition to art, physical education, vocal and instrumental music, drama, debate and the basic stuff by having 11 months of school per year and longer school days. Incorporate a 15-20 minute afternoon recess/break for all grades. Attendance would be required age 4-21. Some students might be spending years 17-21 in college or other schooling beyond high school.
I think the declining life expectancy is just a blip that will straighten itself back out. With people living longer and healthier lives, they have more time for a more fully rounded education. Plus they’ll have more time for emotional maturity before taking on adult responsibilities. Medical advances make aging easier physically.
I have osteoarthritis, but I’m very fortunate to have had both shoulders totally replaced, plus work done on my feet and hands so I’m still physically quite able. Preceding generations wouldn’t have been too incapacitated to function independently.
Today’s youth have the time to be in school longer and only a small fraction of the population are farmers so schools closed for entire summers is simply unnecessary.
Let’s do a major national overhaul of education. Major.
I actually think there should be a year-long 12th grade course called “Life,” which touches on personal finance, civics, basic child development, relationships, personal safety, basic concepts in law and social ethics, basic nutrition, cooking, and some basic mechanical/maintenance skills.
And I would add dancing, but that’s just me.
Dancing is a good one for PE classes. The “Life” class is an excellent idea.
Sheila Kennedy writes a first rate blog that has been quoted or referred to here before by Mike and me, perhaps others. Yesterday she wrote a post about civic engagement based on a talk she was asked to present. This quote comes from that post:
“At the time, [2010], for example, only 36% of Americans could name the three branches of government. By last year, that same national survey found the number had slipped to 26%.”
https://goo.gl/5z6c2S
While that’s terrible, I urge you to read the entire post. Dr. Kennedy is a retired college professor and has plenty to offer.
From Kennedy’s post:
“In the United States, however, public education was originally conceived to be—in Benjamin Barber’s felicitous phrase—constitutive of a public. In an ever-more-diverse polity, where the Constitution and “American creed” are essential elements of our “civic religion” (and frequently the source of the only values we hold in common), a robust civics education is what allows us to “constitute” a polity. It is what makes us Americans.”
Kennedy again, because her post is very wise and thoughtful:
“The only thing that all Americans have in common is a particular philosophy of government and a distinctive set of social values—and when we don’t know anything about that philosophy or those values, we aren’t Americans; we’re just a collection of separate, mutually-suspicious constituencies contending for power.
“And most of us understand that encouraging distrust in a bunch of mutually hostile, know-nothing constituencies is highly unlikely to make America great again…”
You have such a positive charisma, Ms. Geelsdottir! It’s no wonder your words are absorbed in awe by many and you are courted by more.
good lord I have a platonic crush on grudznick’s sense of humor. thank jebus for grudz.
I think I agree with the general sentiment in this thread that our education needs an overhaul, just maybe not with the specific details. I don’t think school needs to be 11 or 12 months per year.
Cory thinks, and I agree, that most of the skills acquired through sport can be learned elsewhere, but similarly I don’t think debate is immune from that idea. If teachers are capable, they can incorporate the benefits of debate in their own specific areas of study rather than simply having a required and dedicated debate class that is supposed to help folks learn the things that slip through the cracks in their general studies. If we have that much faith that debate coaches can impact students, have those teachers spend time on core subjects.
Debate is open to everyone. Football is only for relatively muscular boys.
Extracurricular debate offers unique advantages that are difficult to replicate in the classroom. Students break out of their comfort zones and have to speak against and be judged by strangers in other communities. They gain a broader sense of community. I would contend that my ability now to see myself more as a citizen of South Dakota, at home in all corners of the state, than as a resident of just one town was seeded back in high school, in experiencing other schools and towns and learning to network with people from all over the state. That cosmopolitan sense (yes, do laugh, as I apply that word within the boundaries of South Dakota—I invite wordsmiths to suggest a phrase for a worldview spanning towns within a state) was bolstered further by judging and coaching, in which I found myself part of a state-spanning community, helping educate students from all over the state.