High school government teachers don't grab many headlines. But recently we've attracted a brief burst of attention.
The Utah legislature put civics education in the spotlight this spring with a bill — which became law on May 10 — spelling out what Utah students should learn in their government classes. The bill mandated "thorough study" of major historical documents such as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution; important Supreme Court decisions; and significant laws. Its most controversial provision, however, required instructing students that the United States is not a democracy. It is a "compound constitutional republic." The infelicitous phrasing notwithstanding, these provisions more or less echo what the Utah State Office of Education core standards already required. Opponents of the bill howled micromanagement. Proponents voiced deep suspicion that teachers really explained the distinction between a republic and a democracy, or the difference between a federal republic and a unitary state. Both sides were probably right.
Frankly, another headline bothered me a lot more. On May 4, the National Assessment of Educational Progress released the results of its 2010 civics test, administered to a representative sample of fourth, eighth and twelfth graders approximately every four years. This time around only 24 percent of high school seniors scored "proficient" or "advanced" (only 4 percent scored advanced). That's down three percentage points from the unimpressive 27 percent proficient or advanced scores from 2006.
Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor issued a statement that "we have neglected civic education for the past several decades, and the results are predictably dismal." The results are dismal, certainly, but what really troubles me is that we haven't — at least obviously — neglected civics education. Almost all of the seniors, a whopping 97 percent, reported that they had studied civics or government in high school!
So what does a "proficient" student know? According to the Department of Education's National Center' for Education Statistics, which administers the test, he or she should be able to identify, among other things, a "trait of constitutional democracy," "an argument used by critics of the Articles of Confederation," "a potential problem with the War Powers Act," "the effect of U.S. foreign policy on other nations" and "a power granted to Congress by the Constitution."
Fair enough. I'm quite sure I taught all that; I'm a lot less sure that my students would be able to answer these questions two weeks after they passed my semester exam.
Still, this list got me thinking. If we assume that students will forget most of what they learn in class (okay, how much high school chemistry do YOU remember?), what do we really hope they retain as they enter adulthood?
I came up with my own list, which bears no resemblance to state core standards and reflects no state legislature mandates. Whether my students remember these lessons any better than the theoretical and procedural content of my course, I simply cannot say (and maybe don't want to know).
1. Students will understand that the Constitution doesn't just mean what the Supreme Court says it means. This is not to advocate disobeying Court decisions. Andrew Jackson was wrong to disregard the Court's order to protect the Cherokee from state depredation; Dwight Eisenhower was right — and honorable — to enforce a Supreme Court decision that he personally opposed by sending the 101st Airborne to integrate Little Rock's Central High School.
But the nine men and women who sit on the Court are fallible. They sometimes rule incomprehensibly (it's constitutional to use government money to buy maps for religious schools, but unconstitutional to buy secular textbooks for religious schools), and they sometimes repudiate themselves (separate can be equal). In other words, neither the other branches of government nor citizens can abdicate their own responsibility to uphold the Constitution.
2. Students will understand that failing to vote may lighten their wallets. More than half of government spending goes to pay for Social Security and Medicare, even though as a cohort senior citizens are wealthier than the young families who are footing much of this bill. Maybe that's the right choice, but surely it reflects in part the reality that even in the big "youth" election of 2008 just over 50 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds voted, compared with just over 70 percent for voters over 60. So get out and vote — or stop complaining!
3. Students will understand the law of unintended consequences. Take campaign finance reform as an example. Clearly campaign contributions buy influence, and when it comes to money we are far from equal. Yet efforts to regulate contributions have not slowed campaign spending; they have simply diverted ever larger streams of money into channels that are less subject to political scrutiny and control.
Recent legislative efforts to prevent another financial meltdown, similarly, have essentially made "too big to fail" the law of the land. Stay tuned for the next round of business failures. Again, this is not to suggest that Congress should just announce a recess and go home, but rather that intentions do not always produce the desired results … and good intentions are not enough.
4. Students will appreciate the genius of divided government and legislative gridlock. Most government textbooks, none too subtly, suggest that Americans' repeated tendency to elect presidents and legislatures of different parties reflects a kind of political schizophrenia. Might it instead reflect political good sense — a recognition that major government policies best emerge slowly, with much debate and compromise and final decisions that implicate leaders of both political parties?
5. Students will understand that true costs are opportunity costs. Okay, this is one I taught second semester, in economics. But it may be the most important lesson of all. The true cost of any expenditure is not the dollar price tag, but the value of the next best thing one gives up in exchange. The important question isn't "is this program worthwhile?" What we really need to ask is, "what alternative uses — public or private — of these resources are we sacrificing by choosing to spend our money here?" I always told my students that if they learned to think this way when they made a decision, they could forget everything else (after the semester final, that is).
For what it's worth, I do not advocate incorporating these standards into state core requirements or passing any laws mandating that they be taught. I do advocate giving our students a greater sense of their own stake in our governmental principles, structures and decisions.
Mary McConnell is a member of the Deseret News Editorial Advisory Board and a curriculum consultant to Juan Diego Catholic High School in Salt Lake where she previously taught. She graduated from Michigan State University and Oxford University, where she was a Rhodes Scholar. Among her many professional roles, she has served as chief legislative assistant for Congressman Jack Kemp and chief speechwriter for Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger.