Education Week The Civic Standard An Alternative to No Child Left Behindhttp www edweek org ew articles 2008 12 03 14mcclung h28 html print 1 1 of 3 Published Online December 1 2008 Published in Print December 3 2008 COMMENTARY The Civic Standard An Alternative to No Child Left Behind By Merle S McClung For the past six years America s public schools have been preoccupied by compliance with the No Child Left Behind Act s cumbersome details and questionable penalties The most frequent criticism of the federal law is that it is an unfunded mandate If only it were fully funded the argument goes the program could work The problem of course is that underfunding is only half the story A bigger deficiency is that the law is misconceived NCLB s misguided attempts to evaluate student teacher and school success solely by standardized test results in a few subjects have unduly narrowed public education and should be phased out or simply jettisoned When this version of the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act has run its course we should consider returning to the broader civic standard of schooling envisioned by the nation s Founders Today many argue or simply assume that the primary purpose of public education is economic to get a job or to get into college in order to get a better job The economic purpose is to prepare workers to compete in our free market system Or given NCLB s contemporary iteration to compete in the global economy Whether expressed or simply assumed this kind of thinking has evolved to make economic considerations the de facto primary purpose of public education The economic model drives policy and practice in various ways Like dollars in our market economy standardized test scores become with all their limitations the primary measure of success Questionable dollar driven spinoffs include for profit management performance pay corporate marketing soda and snack contracts and the list goes on One could imagine of course that economic or academic goals might have been the focus of the Founders but their conception of education s primary purpose was never so narrow They had a broader civic purpose in mind and saw the nation s interest in public education as growing out of a desire to make our constitutional democracy work Perhaps George Washington in his Farewell Address of 1796 said it best Promote then as an object of primary importance institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened emphasis added Even such fierce political adversaries as John Adams and Thomas Jefferson concurred 1 3 2009 8 46 AM Education Week The Civic Standard An Alternative to No Child Left Behindhttp www edweek org ew articles 2008 12 03 14mcclung h28 html print 1 2 of 3 Adams Education is more indispensable and must be more general under a free government than any other Jefferson It is an axiom in my mind that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves and that too of the people with a certain degree of instruction The exact words may differ but the basic concept stressed by the Founders is the same Preparing the informed and active citizenry is necessary to make our democracy work Although reiterated for its rhetorical value ever since this concept s implications for priority setting are rarely considered The template proposed as the civic standard is embedded in the following statement with each word having significance for public school policy and practice The primary purpose of public education is to prepare students to participate effectively as citizens in our constitutional democracy What follows is a brief summary of important implications of such a civic standard for the content process and assessment of public education Content The emphasis on our constitutional democracy incorporates the core values of the representational government Thus the civic standard requires a basic knowledge of how citizens govern themselves in our democracy its core values as delineated for example in the Bill of Rights how these translate into practice how that practice differs from the ideal whether the system including its core values or the practice should be changed and the means by which the democracy provides for change and resolution of conflicting ideas But the civic standard is not limited to civics and government courses as it suggests other knowledge and skills necessary for informed citizenship For example in interpreting a similar civic standard in his decision in Campaign for Fiscal Equity v State of New York Justice Leland DeGrasse identified the knowledge and skills that voters and jurors need for productive citizenship An engaged capable voter needs the intellectual tools to evaluate complex issues such as campaign finance reform tax policy and global warming Similarly he wrote that jurors may be called on to decide complex matters that require the verbal reasoning math science and socialization skills that should be imparted in public schools Jurors today must determine questions of fact concerning DNA evidence statistical analyses and convoluted financial fraud to name only three topics Although creating a formidable some would say impossible task for schools the New York court was not setting minimum standards or outcomes that schools or students must achieve only the opportunity for such outcomes Justice DeGrasse s emphasis on both the cognitive and participatory aspects of productive citizenship helps give specific meaning to the civic standard In a dumbed down age when political spin is shameless because it is effective the Founders vision of the informed and active citizenry necessary to make our democracy work is especially relevant Process The civic standard s emphasis on participation has important implications for the process of public education often called the hidden curriculum No matter how well a school teaches content what it practices often instructs more At its most basic level rote textbook teaching of the content mentioned above compelled belief and authoritarian methods will not advance the critical thinking and open discussion that are central to the civic standard The standard s emphasis on participation requires a focus on people skills such as understanding and working with others in addition to important cognitive skills such as reading and math The emphasis on participation also provides a