AN AFTERTHOUHGT?

The last posting introduced a publication issued by the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS).  The NCSS is the professional organization of social studies educators.  The publication, referred to here as C3 Framework,[1] is meant to provide standards so that educators in this field can go about integrating state standards to the Common Core curricular standards.  State education bureaucracies can adopt Common Core standards on a voluntary basis.

          This blog, in real time, will review this publication and make comment on its content.  It will “evaluate” the standards and other rationale arguments the publication makes against this blog’s stated arguments in favor of federation theory.  Summarily, federation theory is proposed in this blog as a guide to determine social studies content, especially in the subject matter of civics and government; secondary subjects, students are required to take to gain either advancement into high school or a high school diploma.

          The last posting ended with a list of principles the NCSS devised to guide them in their development of the publication.  They are:

·        Social studies prepares the nation’s young people for college, careers, and civic life.

·        Inquiry is at the heart of social studies.

·        Social studies involves interdisciplinary applications and welcomes integration of the arts and humanities.

·        Social studies is composed of deep and enduring understandings, concepts, and skills from the disciplines.  Social studies emphasizes skills and practices as preparation for democratic decision-making.

·        Social studies education should have direct and explicit connections to the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts.

The writer, in that posting, hypothesized that this effort by the NCSS would be guided by the natural rights construct since this effort is to bolster the curricular work of both national and state educational bureaucracies.  A good place to test that educated hunch is with the above principles of this national – in scope – project.

          To begin, this writer will not assume that the principles are listed in some order of priority.  That is, they could have been listed in any order without giving the reader a different sense of what is more important than something else.  Perhaps there is some logical progression involved, but that does not determine more importance to one principle over another.  If anything, one might place highest importance to the last listed principle, since it reveals the fundamental reason the project was undertaken.

          For the purposes of this review, it will, over at least two postings, begin with the first listed principle and proceed to the last.  In this, this writer has a very heavy concern with the first listed principle.  It identifies what the standards’ aim is for social studies and lists three preparational targets.  Here one can assume a priority listing since these could easily be listed in any optional order.  By listing college first, careers second, and civic life last, the developers betray a political concern.

          First, the central raison d’etre for social studies, heck for all public schooling, is good citizenship.  That is why education is guaranteed, either using public or private funds.  At least that is how the establishment of public schooling was initially sold to the powerholders of this nation.  If the main goals were college and careers, then why should tax monies be expended on them?  If a person wants his/her kids to go to college or have a rewarding career, why should that be a financial burden on the general population?

          No, the reason tax monies are used is that it is in the common good to have good citizens.  Early on this blog, it had the following to say on this topic:

Despite the prudence of instituting public schools, it took until the mid-1800s to sell the idea and begin the process culminating in the system there is today. There has been, almost since the beginning of the nation, a recurring theme by those advancing public education of what the basic aim should be. The historian Butts[2] writes about the ways some of the founders captured this theme.

He writes: “preparing the people for the common duties of republican citizenship required a common education whose first and basic priority is building and maintaining a cohesive political community devoted to the civic ideals of liberty, equality, popular consent, and personal obligation for the public good.”[3]

Among the early historical dignitaries supporting such a notion where Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and George Washington. More directly stated, the central reason for building a public-school system was to prepare good citizens. This reason does not exclude other reasons; it was and is merely held to be the most important, at least in the minds of these heroic characters and many others who followed.

Since those days, though, the status of social studies has vacillated in a generally downward direction.[4]

This writer is making a point of this priority because he feels that the stated sense of importance within this publication leads to less than optimal policy choices.  As stated, it communicates an individualist notion of what education should strive to accomplish.  This is at the sacrifice of communal interests.  It is line with the shift in American political thinking and sensitivities.

          That shift, as this blog has reported, is one from a federalist view to the natural rights view; a shift completed in the years following World War II.  Whether someone is ready for college or is being set up to take on rewarding careers is mostly a personal ambition.  Yes, a nation is healthier if its citizens can attain good, higher education or be afforded meaningful work experiences.  But this positive result is only indirectly an asset for the commonwealth.

          And with this priority, the rest of the principles take on a more personal bent.  One is more apt to read the other four principles as furthering what individual students can secure for their own benefits.  The argument here is not to do away with individual concerns; they are important.  Surely, social studies can serve to bolster those interests.  But those interests should be defined within public institution’s main concern.  That is the common good.

          The next posting will look more closely at the remaining principles and then, with subsequent postings, get into the body of the C3 Framework.  Of main interest is:  does this judged priority influence the content of this document?  Again, the hypothesis is:  yes, it does.

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[1] National Council for the Social Studies, Preparing Students for College, Career, and Civic Life (Washington, D. C.:  NCSS, 2013), accessed April 16, 2018, https://www.socialstudies.org/c3.

[2] R. Freeman Butts, The Civic Mission in Educational Reform: Perspectives for the Public and the Profession (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1989).

[3] Ibid, p. 65

[4] “Civics Education: Job One,” September 24, 2010.  Modified to adjust to current editorial format of this blog.  This posting has been deleted from the archival collection of this blog.

INTRODUCING C3

This blog in the past has identified two major groupings within the social studies education community within the US:  one, the establishment – made up of school district bureaucracies, including schools, and federal education offices and agencies dedicated to advance social studies at the state level – and two, the academic contingent at the nation’s colleges and universities.  The former is basically guided by the natural rights construct; the latter is guided by the critical theory construct.  Between the two there is palpable discord in what social studies policy should be.

          Nowhere is this discord more observable than in determining what the curriculum of social studies should contain.  This blog has dedicated quite of bit of space to describing how each construct affects or attempts to affect that curriculum.  Summarily, natural rights construct promotes a laissez-faire approach that abandons any meaningful effort toward promoting a values-based content.  The reason for this is that, being based on a natural rights view, the intent is to promote liberty. 

As such, the bias is toward content in which the individual student determines his/her value preferences.  The result is one in which social studies courses are heavy on structural matters – for example, in civics the structure of government is prominent – and any attempt at value laden issues are limited to what is popularly determined – what predominates the news of the day.  This approach has no conceptual wholeness to it; no sense of direction.  For example, given the current incidences of school shootings, gun control is an issue a civics course might handle.

This blog has made the argument that this lack of theoretical foundation for the choice of content in effect is a value bias.  Issues are determined by the collective interests of the population at a given time and reflects more of a market orientation – which issues “sells” on a given day or period. 

In turn, market biases are no more than the accumulation of individual choices.  In turn, the approach furthers an individualism that ignores communal concerns.  There is no or little thought of how the communal interest is determined:  what constitutes the general good or the commonwealth’s health and well-being?

On the other side, there is academia and that faction is guided, as stated above, by the critical theory construct.  With them there is a viable and well-thought out values commitment.  That is, those who adhere to this construct and see this nation’s – or, for that matter, that of the Western world’s – social/economic/political arrangements in the grip of an economic, exploitive class.  In turn, that class, through institutional mechanisms determine the substance, processes, and functions of establishment policies.  That includes schools.

Those policies are geared toward advancing those exploitive relations.  Therefore, these academics claim that such course work as in social studies, as they are administered today, are directed toward justifying these relations or ignoring them.  As for any substantive direction, these academics support inclusion of content guided by critical theory.  This is a compilation of theoretical/ideological substantive material, but the one tradition it favors is a Marxian view of societal conditions.

There is one institution that seems to bring these “warring” factions – the establishment education professionals and academics – physically together; that is the professional, educational organizations’ annual meetings.  It is an interesting thing to observe; these meetings attract diverse populations.  There, they communicate if only superficially.  Occasionally, these organizations issue curricular products.  Their content is interesting to analyze.  Why?  Because of the tensions just outlined.

In 2013, with a supplement added in 2017, the national professional organization of social studies – the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) – issued such a document.  It is entitled College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards.  This blog will refer to it as the C3 Framework.  Its purpose is:

To strengthen their social studies programs.  Its objectives are to: a) enhance the rigor of the social studies disciplines; b) build critical thinking, problem solving, and participatory skills to become engaged citizens; and c) align academic programs to the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies.[1]

In short, the publication is to be used by state education agencies to align, on a voluntary basis, state standards to the national Common Core standards.[2]

          This posting is introducing a series of postings that will, in real time, review and make comment on the content of this publication.  Of prime interest is to test the hypothesis of whether the publication provides evidence as to the above identified biases of the educational establishment or does it incorporate the concerns of the academics.  A third option is that it designs a compromise between the two.

Yes, the standards of this effort are the product of academics, but that does not assure a critical theory bent to its content.  The academic bias identified here is not one shared by all academics.  There are those who support the more establishment position on content.  Given that this is produced to align state standards with Common Core standards, this writer believes the publication will side with the establishment view.  He is eager to find out.  The reader is welcomed to join him in his inquiry.

Before leaving this initial look at the C3 Framework, here is a list of principles the developers of the framework identify:

·        Social studies prepares the nation’s young people for college, careers, and civic life.

·        Inquiry is at the heart of social studies.

·        Social studies involves interdisciplinary applications and welcomes integration of the arts and humanities.

·        Social studies is composed of deep and enduring understandings, concepts, and skills from the disciplines.  Social studies emphasizes skills and practices as preparation for democratic decision-making.

·        Social studies education should have direct and explicit connections to the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts.[3]

Perhaps these principles are a good place to start and the next posting will begin this blog’s analysis of the C3 Framework by making comment on these ideals.

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[1] National Council for the Social Studies, Preparing Students for College, Career, and Civic Life (Washington, D. C.:  NCSS, 2013), accessed April 16, 2018, https://www.socialstudies.org/c3.

[2] The Common Core Standards is a federal government’s response to the increased demands employers and colleges are exerting in their recruitment of employees and students.  In turn, these demands reflect the inherent competition a global economy places within advanced nations.  For more background information see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Core_State_Standards_Initiative, accessed April 16, 2018.

[3] National Council for the Social Studies, Preparing Students for College, Career, and Civic Life.