A FEDERALIST ANGLE ON CIVIC/POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS

With the last posting, this blog left the reader with an “assignment.”  He/she was to answer the question:  How well could he/she read federalist biases into the C3 Framework’s standards?  Of course, the C3 standards are the stated aims the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) identified for state civics education officials and other educators – e.g., teachers – to adopt.  That is, these standards are what these educators should, through their students’ performance, strive to achieve. 

C3 is part of the Common Core Standards project the US Department of Education developed.  It is to be implemented, through encouragement, by state public education systems.[1]  The last several postings have looked at how these civics standards have been contextualized.  Overall, this blog judges the NCSS’ description of C3 standards as somewhat deficient – they lack enough of a rationale as to why they have students achieve what they call on students to achieve.  The reader can read those critiques found in the last two postings.

But those postings made the case that a teacher or educator could read into the standards a federalist rationale.  What follows, follows that advice.  That is, this posting begins to look at the standards to assist educators who wish to be guided by federation theory in their planning and instruction.

The standards are presented within three conceptual categories:  Civic and Political Institutions, Participation and Deliberation: Applying Civic Virtues and Democratic Principles, and Processes, Rules, and Laws.  Here and in the two-following postings each standard is highlighted and, if appropriate, a comment or two will be offered.  These comments indicate how each standard can become a federalist standard.

To remind the reader, the following set of questions are federalist questions and give the reader a sense of how the standards are potentially “federated.”  They are:

·        How engaged should citizens be in solving public issues? 

·        How much are citizens involved in collaborative efforts to solve public issues? 

·        How much should citizens see public issues as threats to federalist values including equality, liberty, and, most importantly, the health of the commonwealth? 

·        How much is an issue over trust (or a lack of honesty)? 

·        How much does the issue reflect over-prioritization of self-interests over communal interests? 

·        How much is power and authority concentrated or diffused in relation to a given public issue?

In other words, does the content of a civics course, unit of study, or lesson reflect concerns over social capital or civic humanism?[2]

Here are the Civic and Political Institutions standards and accompanying commentary:

·        Individually and with others, students distinguish the powers and responsibilities of local, state, tribal, national, and international civic and political institutions.

This standard addresses directly what most people think of when they hear the word, federation.  A federal system is one that has multi-level governments – it is a noncentralized system.  Of course, the US has such a system with the federal/state government arrangement.  While there are also local governments – county and city governments – constitutionally these local governments are creatures of the state whereas the state governments are created not by the central government, but the people of the respective states.  It is a complex system. 

This standard is federal enough as written.  This writer might have added a phrase – such as, “to appreciate the lack of over-concentration of power within the US …” – but to do so would have probably demanded an additional standard that distinguishes the American system from those of other nations or of international systems. 

The point is that American federalism – along with what might exist in other nations – allows for local socio-political culture to express their political biases.  Also, as a related issue, nations might have federalist structures, but lack in having federalist processes.  To be a federated system, the processes are more essential, but the structure is also very important.[3]

·        Individually and with others, students analyze the role of citizens in the U.S. political system, with attention to various theories of democracy, changes in Americans’ participation over time, and alternative models from other countries, past and present.

A federalist view sees this standard as an opportunity to make some very important distinctions.  The history of the US has been one in which various views over various social qualities have arose and gained follow-ship – currently, one might see “Trumpism” in this light.  Of interest is to distinguish federalist thought vs. natural rights thought vs. critical theory thought.  These vying perspectives are particularly important among educators, but they are also important to provide context for what a federated American government course or civics course is attempting to do.

·        Individually and with others, students analyze the impact of constitutions, laws, treaties, and international agreements on the maintenance of national and international order.

All polities are the product of one of three processes:  force, accident, or choice.  This standard paves the way for students to look at each of these processes – their histories and examples – and how the US was not the product of a military/strong “man” development, nor the product of a cultural tradition in a given territory, but the product of a group of founders getting together and choosing to set up the polity.  This leads logically to the next standard.

·        Individually and with others, students explain how the U.S. Constitution establishes a system of government that has powers, responsibilities, and limits that have changed over time and that are still contested.

This standard marks the point of instruction that a teacher can provide the evidence that US constitutions – both at the central and state levels – are compacts.  As such, they are sacred agreements among the citizenry of the respective jurisdictions.  That means that citizens are committed to abide by the provisions of those compacts as equal participants with equal benefits (rights and other privileges). 

It also forms a partnership no matter what any citizen does – subject to appropriate sanctions for abuses or other offenses to the agreement.  This includes, but not limited, to disobeying the law.  Of course, this reflects the history – stretching all the way back to the Mayflower Compact (which was technically a covenant) through the development of the colonies, the development of the national government – the Articles of Confederation and the US Constitution – and the fifty states.

·        Individually and with others, students evaluate citizens’ and institutions’ effectiveness in addressing social and political problems at the local, state, tribal, national, and/or international level.

This can be a potentially important standard.  Of importance, a la federalist values, are problems and solutions defined in terms of the common good as opposed to the good of individuals, selected groups, corporations, or other organizations that can be linked to a sub-societal arrangement.  Of course, federated instruction would ask those questions that has students consider whether actors are defining their interests in ways that place in priority self-interest over the common interest or the other way around.  These types of questions undergird federated instruction.

·        Individually and with others, students critique relationships among governments, civil societies, and economic markets.[4]

This standard does not elicit much of a federalist concern, but it does steer the conversation to the interaction between political actors.  In turn, one can question the motivations those actors bring to those interactions.  Therefore, this standard can further in the direction of the preceding standard.

          The next posting will pick up on this review by looking at the second category:  Participation and Deliberation: Applying Civic Virtues and Democratic Principles.  That category promises a rich area to amplify since it introduces the concept, civic virtue.

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[1] National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), College, Career and Civic Life (C3 Framework for Social Studies State Standards), accessed May 21, 2018, https://www.socialstudies.org/sites/default/files/2017/Jun/c3-framework-for-social-studies-rev0617.pdf .

[2] This blog defines these social qualities as follows:  social capital is characterized by having an active, public-spirited citizenry, egalitarian political relations, and a social environment of trust and cooperation and civic humanism, as Isaac Kramnick describes it, “conceives of man as a political being whose realization of self occurs only through participation in public life, through active citizenship in a republic.  The virtuous man is concerned primarily with the public good, res publica, or commonweal, not with private or selfish ends.”

[3] Daniel J. Elazar, Exploring Federalism (Tuscaloosa, AL:  The University of Alabama Press, 1987).

[4] National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), College, Career and Civic Life (C3 Framework for Social Studies State Standards), 32-33.  Each of these standards are taken from this source.