[Note: If
the reader has taken up reading this blog with this posting, he/she is helped
by knowing that this posting is the next one in a series of postings. The series begins with the posting, “The Natural Rights’ View
of Morality” (February 25, 2020, https://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-natural-rights-view-of-morality.html).
Overall, the series addresses how the study of political science has
affected the civics curriculum of the nation’s secondary schools.]
With this posting, this blog reviews
the content of those standards that the Center for Civic Education developed to
guide the question-development process of its national testing program. This writer wants to contextualize what
follows and make an observation. When
one looks at the officialdom of social studies at the national level one sees an
observable change going on.
Of
recent vintage, the federal government’s Department of Education efforts has
included a joint project with the professional organization of social studies
educators, the National Council for the Social Studies. That project has issued a set of national
standards for civics. Through that
effort, one can sense that a change of direction might be in the
works – hopefully, the C3 Framework,[1]
what its resulting standards can be called, indicates a move away from a
natural rights stance to one that engages in a more normative approach. Time will tell.
But as to the efforts that leadership
has taken up to this point – those efforts that have influenced the general
approach instruction has implemented – one can look at two concrete products. They are the textbooks that school districts
have distributed to teachers and the national standards that have been used to evaluate
the state of civics education. This
posting starts with the standards.
To begin, one can look at the
Educational Testing Service standards that were published in 2003. Below is a sample of these standards as well as
those of 2014 and they are followed by how this writer evaluates them, i.e., he
reports on a growing awareness of how un-communal civics instruction had become. This posting looks at the former standards
and the next posting will highlight the 2014 standards.
As one reads the following excerpt, one
should observe the tenor and priority the writers of that document
express. This review chooses from 2003 standards
those items regarding rights and responsibilities of citizens:
Content summary and
rationale
One of the primary purposes of
American government is the protection of personal, political, and economic
rights of individuals. It is essential, therefore, for citizens to understand
what these rights are and why they are important to themselves and their
society.
Few, if any, rights can be
considered absolute. Most rights may be
limited when they conflict with other important rights, values, and
interests. An understanding of both the
importance of rights and the need for reasonable limitations upon them provides
a basis for reasoned discussion of issues regarding them.
1. Rights of
individuals. Students should be able to
explain why certain rights are important to the individual and to a democratic
society.
To achieve this standard, students
should be able to
· identify
the following types of rights and explain their importance
· personal
rights, e.g., to associate with whomever one pleases, live where one chooses,
practice the religion of one's choice, travel freely and return to the United
States, emigrate
· political
rights, e.g., to vote, speak freely and criticize the government, join
organizations that try to influence government policies, join a political
party, seek and hold public office
· economic
rights, e.g., to own property, choose one's work, change employment, join a
labor union, establish a business
· identify
contemporary issues regarding rights, e.g., school prayer, employment, welfare,
equal pay for equal work ...
Content summary and rationale
An understanding of the importance
of individual rights must be accompanied by an examination of personal and
civic responsibilities. For American
democracy to flourish, citizens must not only be aware of their rights, they
must also exercise them responsibly and they must fulfill those responsibilities
necessary to a self-governing, free, and just society.
2. Responsibilities of
individuals. Students should be able to
explain why certain responsibilities are important to themselves and their
family, community, state and nation.
To achieve this standard, students
should be able to identify such responsibilities as the following and explain
their importance
· personal
responsibilities, e.g., taking care of themselves, accepting responsibility for
the consequences of their actions, taking advantage of the opportunity to be
educated, supporting their families
· civic
responsibilities, e.g., obeying the law, respecting the rights of others, being
informed and attentive to the needs of their community, paying attention to how
well their elected leaders are doing their jobs communicating with their
representatives in their school, local, state, and national governments,
voting, paying taxes, serving on juries, serving in the armed forces[2]
Admittedly,
what follows is the writer’s interpretation; see if the reader agrees.
First,
there is seemingly little to disagree with here. A close reading, though, reveals a bias. In terms of the thrust of these standards’
language, while guardedly adding language concerning communal conditions almost
as an afterthought, the standards favor individual liberty. Students are encouraged to pursue individual
choices. This is in line with
traditional liberal thought as has been described in this blog.
While
there is a reference to certain values, they are mostly procedural ones such as
participating in the political process, but only minimally. How does the language pursue communal
interests? Honestly, does the above
language encourage community or is it a language reflecting a systems approach
with a structural and functional perspective?
As the reader might guess, this writer sees the language as promoting
individualism.
Does
it harken to a view of government as being of and by its citizens or does it
paint a picture segregating the citizenry from its government? The claim here is that the language
communicates a separation and, while there is a concern for civic
responsibilities, the emphasis is on individual liberal rights in that that
standard is highlighted first and has more substance. The next posting will pursue this
investigation into the next set of standards the Center for Civic Education
issued in 2014.
[1] To see the product of that effort see National
Council for the Social Studies, Preparing Students for College, Career, and
Civic Life (C3) (Washington, D. C.:
NCSS, 2013), accessed April 16, 2018, https://www.socialstudies.org/c3 . To see this writer’s critique of that effort,
see Robert Gutierrez, Toward a
Federated Nation: Implementing National
Civics Standards (Tallahassee, FL:
Gravitas/Civics Books, 2020) particularly Chapter 1, “C3 Framework of
Standards.’’
[2] Center for Civic Education, National Standards for Civics and Government (Calabasas, CA: Center for Civic Education, 2003), 35-36.
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