STANDARD BIASES

This blog has made the claim that in the years following World War II, the nation, in its perspective of governance and politics, shifted.  Until that time, ever since colonial days, the dominant perspective was the mental construct this writer entitles traditional federalism.  The blog defines, describes, and explains this view and the effect it had on the American political feelings and behaviors during all those many years.

          Since the mid-1940s, another mental construct became dominant:  the natural rights construct.  Of late, this blog has reviewed the effects of this construct on civics education, political science, and the social/political realities of the nation.  With this posting, a look at a more formal evaluation of civics education is presented with commentary on how the natural rights view affects that evaluation.

More specifically, this posting attempts to convey an understanding of how natural rights exerts its influence by reviewing existing standards that, in turn, have been used to develop test questions.  Specifically, the focus is on the National Assessment Educational Progress (NAEP) testing program known as the Nation's Report Card.[1] 

By selecting NAEP testing program, this writer chooses a program that has made efforts to address the more mechanical aspects of a natural rights-based curricular work (this mechanical quality was described in the last posting).  He sees NAEP testing program to be in an evolving process which is moving toward a more community-based view of the subject matter it is testing.  It is through such a change that a more amenable effort to supporting social capital is achieved.

But to date, this testing program, as represented by its standards, has not changed enough.  Overall, its standards do not yet promote social capital – the standard this blog has offered by which to judge whether any element of the nation’s civics curricular effort is worthwhile. 

Having stated that limitation of NAEP, the judgment here is that with the latest edition of the standards, issued in 2014, one can see progress over previous editions – they do demonstrate a recognition that an attention to communal factors is something for which the nation’s civics curriculum should strive.

For example, the 2014 set of standards highlights values that can be considered as addressing social capital concerns.  That list consists of civility, respect for the rights of others, respect for law, negotiation and compromise, civic mindedness, and compassion.[2]  To be clear, these values are a subset of the overall values the standards promote – thirteen of them.  Be that as it may, their addition demonstrates more concern for communal qualities.

To further heighten its concern for community, the newer document contains throughout its pages an array of quotes from historical characters who communicate civil and democratic values.  These quotes can be seen to further encourage educators to promote social capital.  That is great, but this is seen, by this writer, as only a step in the right direction.  More can be done.

How are the newer standards deficient?  The standards do refer to values ensconced in the nation’s and states’ constitutions.  But those values are more supportive of structural elements of government.  For example, one such value is the distributive value of power as demonstrated by a two-tiered government and the checks and balance system, but one does not see any direct effort to bolster communal ties which provide essential support to a federal system of government.

And while the 2014 version of the NAEP standards identifies values that not only support constitutional principles but also, to a limited extent, social capital, the problem is that this more general support of these qualities is not meaningfully worked into the wordage of the standards themselves.  They are offered as background “music” and are there to provide guidance about how one is to interpret the standards.

Nor are these values reflected in a well-thought out rationale for their use.  That is, these values are listed without any explanation of how they are useful in encouraging trust and cooperation, essential supportive motivations upon which social capital depends. 

And while the above “social capital” values are notable, they are not the only ones that could have been chosen.  There are more direct or important prerequisite values in establishing a level of civic responsibility innate in a polity that holds social capital essential to its health.  Such values as empathy, trust, friendship, loyalty, and a sense of partnership among citizens are but a few values aimed more directly toward bolstering social capital.

In short, despite its more communal turn, the 2014 version of the standards does not sufficiently express a “we're in this together” message.  Unfortunately, the current language of the NAEP is judged to be more perfunctory than reflecting a true adoption of a federated view of governance, politics, and citizenship.

But the NAEP standards is a national effort.  What about the state level?  At that more local level, where standards have real consequences for students – in some states they are used to see whether a student passes a grade or not – one finds a stronger natural rights bias.  Readers can “Google” the state standards for their state; the writer did so for the state of Florida.

Compared to the NAEP language, Florida’s language reflects a more uncompromised systems approach as it bolsters a structural and functional perspective.  It has more definite provisions that segregate the citizenry from its government, in that it describes government as a third-party service provider.  In addition, those standards emphasize the structural elements of government in stark language without communicating any communal concerns.[3]

Before leaving this topic, there is another important aspect to this description.  Textbooks are chosen at the state level.  Nothing shows off a curriculum more than a review of the textbooks used in the classroom.  That includes civics education.  If a parent or other taxpayer wants to know what the curriculum of a subject is, he or she need only look at the textbook used and it will uncover what the curricular content, the scope, of that subject, is.[4]

In doing so, a course’s textbook will reveal, with a review of the topics its pages choose to include and the questions the text asks of the material, which mental construct is guiding the choice of content for that subject.  That includes civics courses.  As for high school government classes, the textbook that is overwhelmingly used is Magruder’s American Government textbook.[5]  This blog’s review will next look at the effect Magruder’s has had in government classes.

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[1] In full disclosure, this writer, about ten years ago, through the efforts of Dr. John Patrick, worked on a committee whose assignment was to evaluate proposed test questions for NAEP’s next administration of its test to measure civics knowledge among secondary students.  This test is given to a random sample of students around the country.  Through the results, educators can gain a sense of how well the nation’s civics instruction is doing.

[2] “National Standards for Civics and Government,” Center for Civic Education, accessed September 7, 2016, http://www.civiced.org/standards?page=912erica#15 .

[3] “Fundamentals of Government and Public Administration,” Florida State Department of Education, accessed September 7, 2016, http://fldoe.org/core/fileparse.php/5574/urlt/8900500.pdf .

[4] The reason for this is that teachers see their responsibility as teaching the textbook they have been given to use in the course of study assigned to them.

[5] Willian A. McClenaghan, Magruder’s American Government (Florida Teacher’s Edition) (Boston, MA:  Prentice Hall/Pearson, 2013).

CLARIFYING THE MECHANICAL CHARGE

In the posting leading to this one, it was reported that a charge has been made against the use of political systems model as a theoretical guide for political science research.  The charge is that the use of the model tended to make its corresponding view of government and politics as having a mechanical quality.  This posting will further explain what is meant by that determination.

The main concern is that political science is not a natural science such as physics, chemistry, and biology, but a human science.  Despite this, the move toward the systems model made political studies a study that saw its subject as a machine with automated responses to different stimuli under specific conditions.  This is another way of saying that the model is deterministic in the way it describes and explains political behavior.

In the previous posting, David Easton is quoted on this issue, indicating his recognition of the charge and how his treatment of systems modeling introduced an organic element that, in turn, describes political systems as self-adjusting entities.  By such an alteration of pure behaviorist theorizing, the model overcomes the inclination of being mechanical, or so Easton indicates.

But the question remains: is systems theory, with the organism element in place, human enough?  That is a debate still waged in some circles.  But what is not debatable is that behavioral-leaning political scientists were (are) sensitive to the charge of being mechanical.  This has the implication that their work is not sufficiently sensitive to human qualities. 

The critics say such theoretical shifting does little to capture how rich a reaction to situational conditions can be.  While it recognizes such factors as emotions, it lacks insight into what and how emotions and other more qualitative variables affect the phenomenon under study.  Is the notion that by merely adding an “O” (for an organic element) to the S-R (stimulus-response behaviorist model), the model would be able to recognize and account for human concerns?  Would it be able to detect how the system can react to its environmental conditions?  The critics believe that it cannot.

This criticism runs along a fine line of distinction.  For example, one can measure how often reactive statements are made to a certain stimulus, but can it account fully for the tone in which the statements are made or the power enjoyed by the sender of such statements due to his/her reputation or some other quality?  Perhaps to a point, but not totally and, in the opinion of critics, not adequately.

Helpful to this concern might be a view of how systems analysis is applied to other areas of human endeavor.  One area would be business operations.  Much rethinking in business strategizing has directed attention to making business models more sensitive to “human” needs, but these newer focuses are haunted by established biases which tend to be more behaviorist in their orientation (see for example, Jim Collin’s work, Good to Great,[1] for a description of how these debates are carried out).

But there is a record on how the more mechanistic view of government has affected public policy.  Probably the most telling and visible example is how systems view led to policemen cruising their beats in squad cars.  This replaced officers walking the neighborhood and, consequently, not getting to know the citizens whom they are there to protect to be more “efficient.” 

When this policy bias is instituted among all the various governmental operations, the result is conflicting perceptions of “we” versus “them” and too little of “us” among the public servants who are there to serve the public.  A mechanistic view of governance is, of course, not limited to policing but describes too much of how government bureaucracies face their responsibilities in general. 

Of course, this view is not only found in government offices such as the DMV.  It can also be seen in the tone and descriptions of government and politics in the nation’s civics courses.  Unfortunately, it can even be reflected, for the most part, in the policies issued by school district offices, state education departments, and the federal government’s Department of Education.

This blog has argued that the systems approach, as it has been applied to secondary study, is relatively lacking in an organic sense, much less a humanistic sense in its treatment of governmental operations and the activities of those who try to influence public policy. 

Whether those who are concerned with this debate see developments in systems sufficient or not is of little interest here.  If behaviorism is purely, partly, or not at all deterministic, is a concern for political scientists and only indirectly of importance to civics educators.  Here, the more important concern is how mechanistic a view of government and politics has seeped into the nation’s civics curriculum and its corresponding instruction.

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[1] Jim Collins, Good to Great:  Why Some Companies Make the Leap … and Others Don't, (New York, NY:  HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. 2001).

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[1] Jim Collins, Good to Great:  Why Some Companies Make the Leap … and Others Don't, (New York, NY:  HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. 2001).