“Trustee Malcolm DeKryger compared time at Purdue to an eye of a hurricane, where students were focused on the rigors of getting a degree.
‘There’s a lot stuff going on in our country and our civics going around us,’ DeKryger said. ‘But when you’re in the eye, it’s pretty quiet. … I guess that’s why I personally agree with that idea that we’ve got to make sure there is that touchpoint out there, so when you do go out into the world, you’re prepared.’” (quoted in Dave Bangert, “Purdue Trustees, Mitch Daniels Reiterate Call for Civics Test Get A Diploma,” Lafayette Journal and Courier, June 18, 2019.
No one can
dispute the value of education about the nation, the world, and the issues that
have and will affect peoples lives in the short-and long-term future. Schools
and universities, of course, have historically been primary venues for
disseminating such information. However, most often politicians have preferred
narratives about themselves and others that they wish to inculcate in the young.
A more desirable form of information and analysis is one that is diverse,
sensitive to ones own past and present, and shows respect to narratives and
experiences of other peoples and nations. This kind of “civics” education is a
complicated and not achieved by learning isolated facts.
President
Mitch Daniels, Purdue University, in the spring, 2019, proposed that the
university require that each graduating senior at the university demonstrate a
knowledge of what he called “civics.” The members of the Board of Trustees
recently endorsed the idea and implicitly castigated faculty for not moving
expeditiously to establish a civics certification process for graduating
seniors. But faculty have questioned the need for such a certification, what civics
education is, and how to provide for it. Specifically, they asked whether claims
about civics ignorance at Purdue and elsewhere were true. They also asked
whether taking a short-answer test really demonstrated knowledge of the United
States government, its constitution, and the political process. Some faculty
argued that such a need could only be satisfied by at least one course, perhaps
in Political Science or History, that would provide a richer knowledge, raise
competing understandings of the development of the United States government,
and would allow for serious discussions of the strengths and weaknesses of the
American political experience. A ten or twenty item short answer test, they
argued, would not reflect the more subtle and sophisticated needs of civics education.
Some
faculty were puzzled by why, in the context of the existence of a set of
university core requirements already in existence, this idea of a civics
certification emerged. One possible source of the idea of some kind of civics
education can be seen in a January 2016 report published by the American
Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA), an organization founded by the State
Policy Network, which is tied to the American Legislative Exchange Council
(ALEC) and the Charles and David Koch Foundation. The report called “A Crisis
in Civic Education,” describes a survey it sponsored in 2015 that demonstrates
that college graduates and the public in general lack knowledge of “our free
institutions of government.” It listed examples of some basic facts about
government and history that respondents failed to answer correctly. These
included a lack of understanding of how the constitution could be amended,
which institution has the power to declare war, and who was “the father of the
constitution.”
Perhaps
ACTA’s underlying concern was suggested by a quote in the preface of the
document attributed to Louise Mirrer, President of the New York Historical
Society, who received an ACTA award in 2014 “for Outstanding Contributions to
Liberal Arts Education.” She said that in the contemporary world of conflicts
between religious, ethnic and racial groups, Americans need to be reminded of
US history “…especially as that history
conveys our nation’s stunning successful recipe, based on the documents of our founding, for
an inclusive and tolerant society.” (Apparently she forgot the limitations on
the rights of Blacks, women and those without property to vote in “the
documents of our founding.”) In addition, the report takes aim at community
service programs, which it asserts “…give students little insight into how our
system of government works and what roles they must fill as citizens of a
democratic republic.”
It is
clear, therefore, that what the ACTA report (and one could reasonably assume
what has motivated the recommendation of President Daniels, himself an award
recipient from ACTA) and the Purdue Board of Trustees regards as civics
education is a narrative that celebrates the American experience. These sources
presume that specific facts about the Constitution and the Founding Fathers and
basic truisms about the United States as a “melting pot” constitute civics
education. Although civics education is surely a desirable goal of education at
every level, K through college, it requires moving beyond memorizing basic
facts to more subtle examinations about the American experience, including
exposing students to debates about how and why that experience has unfolded in
the way that it has. For example, a real civics education might address
questions such as:
-What is
democracy? Is it just about voting or does it also include the distribution of
society’s resources?-What is power? Who has power in the United States political system? How did they get it? Is the distribution of power and influence in the United States democratic?
-How are people elected to public office? What kind of resources do they need to run for public office? What kind of people are likely to be elected to public office such as relating to their class, race , gender, nationality, and occupations?
-How do policies get introduced, discussed, debated, and passed? Who influences the policymaking process? What role do powerful interest groups play in the policy process?
-What role do political parties play in the electoral and policy process?
-In the United States have there been population groups who have not been the beneficiaries of the political system? Who are they? Why have they not enjoyed the benefits of the political system? What is gerrymandering?
To answer these questions requires that students take a course or more that addresses these issues, perhaps in Departments of Political Science and/or History. For sure, if students lack civics literacy (and that is an empirical question) it cannot be achieved by answers to a series of short answer questions but thorough study, recognizing that answers to the questions are complicated with differing possible answers. And addressing these questions in multiple ways would constitute a real civics education.
