Should the feds mandate Constitution Day activities?

YES
Claire McCaffery Griffin
The mandate is both necessary and appropriate

While many schools have celebrated Constitution Day for years, others recently joined the commemoration in response to a federal mandate Congress passed last December. This mandate requires that any educational institution (K-16) receiving funds from the federal government must provide instruction on the Constitution on or about Sept. 17, which is Constitution Day. The mandate is necessary and appropriate.

The founders of our country knew that the key to the success of the republic they created would be an educated citizenry. Indeed, as John Adams said: “Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people.” Unfortunately, the American people are lacking in that “general knowledge.”

Reports from the U.S. Department of Education indicate that 60 percent of high school seniors lack basic knowledge of American history, and only 25 percent test at the “proficient” level for civic knowledge.

In some districts, a child may study U.S. history in fifth grade and examine the document again in eighth grade-—and that’s it! It’s a civic tragedy that many of our fellow citizens have only an eighth-grade understanding of the Constitution. The federal mandate is only one way to help remedy that situation.

Critics of the mandate complain that it is unfunded, unspecific and unenforceable. What money does it take for a teacher to spend 45 minutes in a class looking at the Preamble? How could the mandate specify what (or how?) everyone from kindergarten teachers to university professors should teach?  Each institution retains the academic freedom to approach this subject in whatever manner is most appropriate for its students.

The mandate is indeed unenforceable: No educators saw the “Constitution Day police” battering down their classroom doors in mid-September. However, the very unenforceability of the mandate reflects the highest of republican ideals. Civic-minded Americans do the right thing—and who could argue that teaching about the Constitution is the right thing—because of their commitment to the civic values embodied in our Constitution and not because the federal government will sanction them if they don’t.

Finally, other critics are concerned that this federal mandate to teach the Constitution may be the first step on the slippery slope to a nationalized curriculum. While giving appropriate attention to the issues of federalism inherent in this debate, this argument misses the mark. Federalism is an empty concept unless the citizenry understands the distribution of powers between the state and national governments. Studying the Constitution is a way to foster this understanding, and the federal mandate is a constitutional means to this end.

Upon leaving the Constitutional Convention in 1787, a passerby asked Benjamin Franklin what the delegates had just created. “A republic,” he replied, “if you can keep it.” The federal mandate is both a necessary and a proper way to help us live up to the founders’ hopes and expectations.

NO
Ken Mareski
It masks a deeper problem in civics instruction

The requirement for schools to teach about the Constitution each year on or about Sept. 17 is found buried in a federal spending bill. I do agree with the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.), that our students, and the people of our nation, seem to have little interest in our Constitution or even the rights it guarantees. Their knowledge of their own government has been reduced to sound bites on the evening news. Sadly, this requirement seems to treat our Constitution like one of those sound bites—taking one day out of an educational year for a cursory glance at this great document.

Sliding a law through the back door of the federal budgeting process seems to overstep the boundaries set by the very document it purports to celebrate (check out the 10th Amendment). If we all agree that teaching our children and young adults about the Constitution which they will inherit is important, then let’s get serious about it.

Forget about the backseat; civics and the other social studies have been pushed into the trunk of our education system, which now seems to favor the creation of more literate workers as opposed to effective citizens. Teaching "something" about the Constitution on one day during the school year isn’t an effective educational practice on a number of levels. In some cases, teachers will be forced to take a "time out" in a unit of study just to slip in a lesson on the Constitution. How much can you accomplish with a one-day activity with no time for follow up because of all the other curricular requirements? Will the lesson be meaningful for the students, or will it be something contrived like a "Constitution Word Search Puzzle"?

Rather than taking one day a year to cover the Constitution as some people may do to satisfy the law, we need to place a greater emphasis on learning about our nation, its history and our government.

What would it take? Lawmakers who will stand up and propose more in-depth and meaningful studies of our founding documents and their relationship to today’s society. Schools that will stop shortchanging the social studies in favor of other areas that are "tested." Teachers who will take the time to explore more-effective ways to present our Constitution and its connections to modern society. And families that will need to place more emphasis on "securing the Blessings of Liberty" rather than securing tickets to the next Liberty Bowl.