Not one to give up just because he has been booted from office by the voters, former State Board of Education chair Don McLeroy has proposed new additions to the social studies curriculum, which is up for adoption by the full board later this month.
First I’m going to summarize several of proposals that are likely to be controversial, and then I’m going to comment on them. At the end of my comments, I will post all of McLeroy’s proposals in his words with his justifications. I’m going to make some comments after each of the first five.
1. Require high school U.S. history students to “evaluate efforts by global organizations to undermine U.S. sovereignty.”
–Where do folks like McLeroy get these ideas? Do they really believe that the United Nations and the World Court and the Kyoto treaty or the G-20, or who knows what else are scheming to undermine U.S. sovereignty? How are students supposed “evaluate” this? Are the textbooks going to identify the efforts to undermine sovereignty?
2. Add two recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions to the U.S. history standards. The first is Ricci v. DeStefano, the 2009 case in which white firefighters sued the city of New Haven, Connecticut, after the city invalidated a civil service examination on which the white firefighters had qualified for promotion but no black firefighters had done so. The Supreme Court ruled that the city had engaged in “express, race-based decisionmaking when it declined to certify the examination results because of the statistical disparity based on race.” McLeroy argues that the decision “provides balance to civil rights issues.” The second case was Kelo v. City of New London. This was the eminent domain case that is anathema to property-rights advocates. The Supreme Court, following precedent, ruled that the city could use its power of eminent domain to acquire property for a public purpose–in this instance, for economic development.
–These two cases, interesting as they may be, do not belong in social studies texts. Their rulings are not groundbreaking. Ricci simply restates the already well established principle that express race-based decisionmaking will not withstand scrutiny. Kelo likewise broke no new ground; it upheld the ability of a governmental body to exercise its power of eminent domain. What made the cases important were not the legal principles involved, but the facts of the cases, which had political significance to conservatives. Ricci struck down government’s power to tailor an affirmative action remedy. Kelo broadened government’s power to take private property for a vague public purpose. They do not rise to the level of essential knowledge, which is what the standards are supposed to be about.
3. Downplay the positive impact of Progressive Era reforms and suggest instead that the work of the era’s reformers like Upton Sinclair, Susan B. Anthony, Ida B. Wells and W.E.B. DuBois created a negative portrayal of America.
–I did not realize that there is a conservative revisionist movement aimed at discrediting the achievements of the progressive era until I read about it on the Web. Jonah Goldberg’s book, Liberal Fascism, is in the forefront of this movement. Its thesis is that fascism is really a philosophy of the left, not the right. Glen Beck is another proponent of the revisionism of the progressive era. It is easy to understand why conservatives dislike the progressives (although most of the progressive politicians were Republicans, and most of the ordinary Americans who embraced progressivism were businessmen who fit the profile of Republican voters. (Theodore Roosevelt was the prototype progressive president.) The reason why Republicans have turned against progressivism is that the progressive reformers ushered in the era of big government. They favored government regulation of business and created the Interstate Commerce Commission to regulate railroads, the Food and Drug Administration to regulate the food processing industry, passed anti-trust legislation and, under Woodrow Wilson, child labor laws. They passed constitutional amendments for a progressive income tax and to give women the vote.
What was progressivism? Richard Hofstadter, an historian whose works (“The Age of Reform,” “Rendezvous with Destiny”) were mandatory reading for history majors when I was in college, described it as “that broader impulse toward criticism and change that was everywhere so conspicuous after 1900, when the already forceful stream of agrarian discontent was enlarged and redirected by the growing enthusiasm of middle-class people for social and economic reform.” It is stunning to think that there is an elected official who regards the reformist impulse as one that brings discredit to America. Would America be better off if Upton Sinclair had not exposed conditions in the meat-packing industry? If Ida Wells had not advocated against lynching? If Susan B. Anthony’s decades of work for women’s suffrage had not borne fruit? If W.E.B. Dubois had not give voice to black aspirations and concerns? If the muckrakers had not exposed the corrupt political machines? American history is not just founding fathers and noble ideals. Yes, reformers presented a negative portrayal of America. But it was an accurate portrayal. That’s why we call it history.
4. Add a standard to high school U.S. history having students “discuss alternatives regarding long term entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare, given the decreasing worker to retiree ratio.
–I don’t have a problem with students learning about the shaky status of entitlement programs. However, the subject more properly belongs to the study of government than history and doesn’t belong in history texts.
5. McLeroy would add a standard to the eighth-grade U.S. history course that maintains separation of church and state was not the intent of the Founders who drafted the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Students would be asked to “Contrast the Founders’ intent relative to the wording of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause, with the popular term ‘Separation of church and state.’”
–This is just pure political advocacy. Conservatives insist that the modern view that there is a wall of separation between church and state is misguided and argue that the founders’ intent regarding separation of church and state should be narrowly interpreted according to the language of the First Amendment: Congress shall make no law regarding an establishment of religion, nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Scholars who reject this position point to Thomas Jefferson’s view, expressed in his 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists, that the First Amendment does erect a wall of separation between church and state: “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state.”
Conservatives like McLeroy reject the idea that the founders believed in separation of church and state.
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What follows is the text of McLeroy’s proposals. I am not going to comment on these, except to make on point at the beginning. The biggest problem with the new social studies standards is not that they are politically inspired, though they are that. It is that the sheer volume of the things that students must learn has grown so large that memorization will inevitably squeeze out critical thinking. “Drill and kill” is the wrong path toward better education.
On second thought, I reserve the right to make a comment or two. My comments appear in italics. (more…)
Tagged: don mcleroy, sboe, State Board of Education
