Every day should be Constitution Day

July 23, 2005

Guest Post by Morbo

I’m a big fan of the Constitution. Especially at this time, with President George W. Bush trying to shred it, our country’s foundational document has never been more relevant. Every American should own a copy and be at least generally familiar with it.

But having said that, I’m no fan of Sen. Robert Byrd’s effort to force all educational institutions and government bodies to spend a day educating about the Constitution.

I’m sure Byrd meant well. According to published reports, he was dismayed at the low level of knowledge most Americans hold about the Constitution. For example, The Washington Post recently reported that only 35.5 percent of students could name the first three words of the preamble to the Constitution. An abysmal 1.8 percent were able to identify James Madison as the father of the Constitution.

Obviously we have some work to do. But I do not believe a mandated, pro forma one day treatment is going to do the trick. To be effective, lessons about the Constitution should be woven into the curriculum throughout the year.

Under Byrd’s amendment, which he slipped into an omnibus appropriations bill last year, all federal employees in the executive branch as well as all educational institutions that receive federal money — from primary schools to universities — must offer “educational and training” materials about the Constitution on or around Constitution Day, Sept. 17.

The measure does not specify what type of materials schools must use, and it provides no funding. To meet the demands of the law, schools could offer a perfunctory look at the Constitution based on materials that are inadequate or even inaccurate. That’s going to do more harm than good.

Byrd has created a market for these materials, and some company or organization is going to rush to fill it. The quality will probably vary widely. I’ve seen some stuff about the origins of the Constitution put out by the far right that would curl your hair. I definitely don’t want that ending up in our schools.

There is a better way: old-fashioned, ninth-grade Civics. I remember it well. I remember learning about our system of checks and balances and how a bill becomes a law. (I even remember, “I’m just a bill/sittin’ right here on Capitol Hill.”) I remember learning about the Bill of Rights and how the principles it enshrines have not always been honored.

We didn’t do it in a day. We couldn’t. The subject is too massive.

Good educators know this. Mark Stout, social studies coordinator for Howard County, Md., public schools, a system that is generally regarded as one of the best in the nation, told The Post there is no need to create a new Constitution lesson plan. “We already have one of those,” he said. “It’s called our curriculum.”

I understand Byrd’s frustration, but I can’t endorse his remedy.

It’s all very well to say “ninth grade curriculum” but you know that each state, and often each district, goes its own way. I don’t really see what there is to complain about here. Do you envision schools using this as an opportunity for an assembly telling them that they all have the right to bear arms like machine guns? (Except for at school where a butter knife may get them suspended?) Do you see a day wasted that should better have been used in studying for Standards Based Testing or whatever?

What I see is more kids and teachers actually reading the Constitution and reviewing its provisions. And that can only be a good thing.

  • We had to pass a test on the Constitution in 8th grade or we didn’t go to high school. Is this no longer the case?

  • At first blush, this strikes me as one of those warm & fuzzy do-nothing bits of legislative flotsam. The chances are good that nothing meaningful will result from this. OTOH, if it tweaks the awareness of 9th grade civics teachers, or the curiousity of 9th grade students, then it’s not a bad piece of flotsam.

    That said, to extend it to the university level is utterly moronic.

  • Let’s remember a few things here:

    First, schools are mandated by state and federal law to teach and reach certain standards of achievement, including math, science and english/language arts. That is all well and good, but “civics” is a luxury in most districts that are strapped with soaring infrastructure costs and dwindling revenues (just look at California’s Prop. 13 — things like that are sweeping the country). Worse, when the go-go 1990s allowed state treasuries to overflow with cash, the local politicians played tax give aways, and now with Bush’s anemic economic “recovery” states like Michigan and virtually all others have no money to pay for needed school reforms.
    — But the bottom line is, what is wrong with requiring that students ALSO learn what it takes
    to preserve our representative democracy, to make them proficient on being a “citizen”?

    Second, we can see the consequences of Bush’s and the Rethugs’ abuse of the Constitution in so many ways: separation of powers, federalism, an independent judiciary, checks and balances, minority rights, and on and on. If we don’t have students who are capable of using basic knowledge of our fundamental form of community governance, then you get idiots who as adults think that it is unfair to tax Paris Hilton’s parents on their excess accumulations of wealth, all the while the idiot’s as working stiffs are paying a far greater percentage of their assets to finance all of our governmental services AND getting a far more diluted benefit therefrom than even just 30 years ago. This comes from basic ignorance of how the process of government was designed to work, and therefore the bastardization of that process by BushCo has been allowed to occur to a far greater degree and much more swiftly than anyone might have otherwise thought possible.

    Third, Byrd is in the minority in the Senate, and it is virtually impossible to get the Rethugs to agree to do anything that even remotely smacks of “progressive thinking.” We DO need an entire civic curriculum thoughout all of K-12, and most schools have them. But there is no incentive (or, under No Child Left Behind, DIS-incentives) to make sure that students achieve “proficiency” on that topic, as there are with math, science, etc. So, with limited time and resources, schools focus on those things that they must to keep their funding and to make “adequate yearly progress” and avoid being labeled as a “failing school. Civics and government are left out, and most schools may require AT MOST one semester or one year as a graduation requirement. That is simply not enough.

    So, getting a foot in the door with Bryd’s amendment is something to applaud and encourage. Is it a small step? Of course. But only a fool would criticize this as worthless due to its “small step” nature. Only an idiot would think that this step is unncessary at all.

  • I’m guessing that you could pick pretty much any subject,
    and get the same dismal results, students and adults
    alike. More so, the adults, probably. After all, they’ve
    had time to forget about what they learned.

    So what do we do about that?

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