Here is today’s test:
- What does the phrase, “with liberty and justice for all,” mean to you?
- On a scale of 0 -100, to what degree does the US live up to the ideal of “liberty and justice for all”? Please explain.
- Which is more important, liberty or justice? Please explain.
I wonder if seniors in our local high schools ever consider such questions?
Thomas Friedman points to coming disaster he foresees for the U.S., and says that in order to avoid a bad future, we need better citizens. Better citizens. Friedman feels, for the sake of our future, we need increasing numbers of individuals who will become committed to better citizenship and who will demand better government.
To prepare better citizens — citizens equipped with an understanding of history, equipped with the capacity for independent thought — would seem to be a big goal for schools in a democracy. But in all the commotion about school reform such as “A Nation At Risk,” or “Goals 2000,” civic education has not been emphasized. Math and science education gets more emphasis than civic education.
This recent article from the NYT, “White House Pushes Science and Math Education” tells about the a new math / science campaign, “Educate to Innovate.” And this video shows Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Office of Science and Technology Policy Director John P. Holdren talking about the billions of additional dollars that will be spent on science and math education.
The push for math and science educational reform is based on the idea that, through improved science and math education, we can keep our economic advantage, we can preserve our “American way of life.”
When a system fails, the natural response is to find someone to blame. But our nation’s decline has in no way been caused by high school graduates not knowing how to apply the quadratic formula, nor graduates not understanding why the seasons change. Our country is declining because of system failure — and increasing math and science competence by citizens in the system is not the answer to the system failure. We have disassembled whole industries and shipped them overseas because special interests had much to gain — not because our high school graduates didn’t know the Pythagorean Theorem. We have system failure because special interests are in power and seek ever more power and reward. We have system failure because ours is a very weak democracy.
Friedman has it right, we need better citizens. If there were enough better citizens, our system of representative democracy could be made to work. If there were enough better citizens, antidemocratic special interests could be held in check.
The fact that our educational system fails to prepare individuals with the skills and capacity for effective citizenship is a much more serious shortcoming, in my view, than the fact that our educational system fails to prepare individuals with skills for global competition. As Eric points out, Ohio is now revising its social study requirements. I am going to research what all is involved.
