A more perfect union?
For more than 200 years, the federal government has resisted telling schools what they should teach.
That's about to change, at least on one day a year. According to a story by Associated Press national education reporter (and former News & Record staffer) Ben Feller, Congress will require all schools and colleges that receive federal money to teach about the Constitution every Sept. 17.
The new requirement was tucked into a large spending bill by Sen. Robert Byrd (D-West Virginia).
He and other supporters say they are frustrated by the lack of knowledge many Americans have about the Constitution and our civil liberties. Surveys of high school students have shown they don't know much about basic civics, even though it is a required course in virtually every state, including North Carolina.
But others say the federal government has no business telling local schools what to teach. One critic even said, "Congress has been acting more like a school board."
I think we can all agree that students need to know about the Constitution and the building blocks of our democracy. But did Congress do the right thing here or have they overstepped their bounds?
Comments (7)
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You can teach all the constitution you want, but if children are still denied a chance to attend the school of their choice by being put in a lottery; or being forced on a 2 hour bus ride under the guise of overcrowding and socio-economic diversity; if people have to be grilled why they want their kid to attend a certain program and show proof, what good is teaching the constitution if people in charge don't set an example by respecting people's rights and what they want and by listening to what the overwhelming majority of people want in High Point.
What is supposedly great for one part of the county should certainly be great for the entire county.
So in conclusion, it's a moot point.
Posted on May 25, 2005 10:11 AM
If you set aside a day to teach our children about the " Constitution " , you can bet that Dot Kearns will demand equal time to teach her beloved " Communist Manifesto ".
Posted on May 25, 2005 12:44 PM
If you can get children to read, it will a good thing. What grade levels does this idea apply.
Posted on May 25, 2005 3:35 PM
Bruce,
Here's another opportunity for you to do some investigative reporting. On the same page with the article you cited is an article "VANISHING CHIDREN San Francisco is rapidly losing its younger population."
I've been following this since last year when the High Point Reassignment plan was launched. The Guilford County School system uses the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) software to run the High Point lottery.
The North High Point residents are to Guilford County Schools as the Asian American population is to SFUSD. SFUSD uses the lottery with 6 factors to assign children throughout the district to schools.
There are many interesting facts to be learned, but I will only name a couple. The article in today's paper states, "...San Francisco's public schools, which have seen enrollment drop from about 62,000 to 59,000 since 2000.
Guess what? The lottery software in use at SFUSD (in its current form) was implemented beginning with the 2001-2002 school year. Coincidence? Absolutely not! Just skim the San Francisco Chronicle for many, many articles and you will see that the numbers are dropping because Asian American families (primarily) are fed up and leaving public schools for private schools.
Just this year there has been a greater movement with the SFUSD school board to "abandon the current system in favor of giving priority to neighborhood students"
(http://sfindependent.com/article/index.cfm/i/022305n_diversityindex)
If Guilford County could only learn from other school systems' mistakes. The trend is back to neighborhood schools for San Francisco, Charlotte-Meck and also Wake County after years of failed social experimentation.
Hasn't anyone noticed that Grier and the board never cite these school districts as success stories anymore???
Posted on May 25, 2005 3:57 PM
Back in the olden, northern days, we observed "Flag Day" on June 14. A great day. Flag waving, flag history, flag folding, color guards, salutes and citizenship stuff. Flag rules (when to fly, how to fly, when not to fly). But here, the kids are out of school in June and it is never/rarely in the curriculum. So sad. But let's not "teach the Constitution." Let's teach young people what it stands for and what it means. We do not teach things: we teach young people in school. Let's not forget that.
Posted on May 26, 2005 11:35 AM
Joe,
The measure doesn't specify any grade levels. It just says that public schools (including colleges) must teach this on Sept. 17.
Here's a link to the actual legislation:
http://www.ed.gov/legislation/FedRegister/other/2005-2/052405b.html
Posted on May 26, 2005 3:16 PM
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Posted on June 21, 2006 2:55 AM