Published Online: December 1, 2008Published in Print: December 3, 2008COMMENTARYThe Civic Standard: An Alternative to No Child Left BehindBy Merle S. McClungFor the past six years, America’s public schools have beenpreoccupied by compliance with the No Child Left BehindAct’s cumbersome details and questionable penalties. Themost frequent criticism of the federal law is that it is an“unfunded mandate.” If only it were fully funded, theargument goes, the program could work.The problem, of course, is that underfunding is only halfthe story. A bigger deficiency is that the law ismisconceived. NCLB’s misguided attempts to evaluatestudent, teacher, and school success solely bystandardized-test results in a few subjects have undulynarrowed public education and should be phased out orsimply jettisoned.When this version of the federal Elementary andSecondary Education Act has run its course, we should consider returning to the broader civicstandard of schooling envisioned by the nation’s Founders.Today, many argue, or simply assume, that the primary purpose ofpublic education is economic: to get a job, or to get into college inorder to get a better job. The economic purpose is to prepare workersto compete in our free-market system. Or, given NCLB’scontemporary iteration, to compete in the global economy.Whether expressed or simply assumed, this kind of thinking hasevolved to make economic considerations the de facto primarypurpose of public education. The economic model drives policy andpractice in various ways. Like dollars in our market economy,standardized-test scores become, with all their limitations, theprimary measure of success. Questionable, dollar-driven spinoffsinclude for-profit management, performance pay, corporatemarketing, soda and snack contracts, and the list goes on.One could imagine of course that economic (or academic) goals mighthave been the focus of the Founders, but their conception of education’s primary purpose was neverso narrow. They had a broader civic purpose in mind, and saw the nation’s interest in public educationas growing out of a desire to make our constitutional democracy work. Perhaps George Washington, inhis 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 governmentgives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened” [emphasisadded]. Even such fierce political adversaries as John Adams and Thomas Jefferson concurred.Education Week: The Civic Standard: An Alternative to No Child Left Behindhttp://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/12/03/14mcclung.h28.html?print=11 of 3 1/3/2009 8:46 AMAdams: “Education is more indispensable, and must be more general, under a free government thanany other.” Jefferson: “It is an axiom in my mind that our liberty can never be safe but in the handsof 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 theinformed and active citizenry is necessary to make our democracy work.Although reiterated for its rhetorical value ever since, this concept’s implications for priority-settingare rarely considered. The template proposed as the civic standard is embedded in the followingstatement, with each word having significance for public school policy and practice: The primarypurpose of public education is to prepare students to participate effectively as citizens in ourconstitutional 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 therepresentational government. Thus, the civic standard requires a basic knowledge of how citizensgovern 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 democracyprovides for change and resolution of conflicting ideas.But the civic standard is not limited to civics and government courses, as it suggests other knowledgeand skills necessary for informed citizenship. For example, in interpreting a similar civic standard inhis decision in Campaign for Fiscal Equity v. State of New York, Justice Leland DeGrasse identified theknowledge and skills that voters and jurors need for productive citizenship: “An engaged, capablevoter needs the intellectual tools to evaluate complex issues, such as campaign-finance reform, taxpolicy, and global warming.” Similarly, he wrote that “jurors may be called on to decide complexmatters that require the verbal, reasoning, math, science, and socialization skills that should beimparted 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 wasnot setting minimum standards or outcomes that schools or students must achieve, only theopportunity for such outcomes. Justice DeGrasse’s emphasis on both the cognitive and participatoryaspects of productive citizenship helps give specific meaning to the civic standard. In a dumbed-downage when political spin is shameless because it is effective, the Founders’ vision of the informed andactive citizenry necessary to make our democracy work is especially relevant.Process The civic standard’s emphasis on participation has important implications for the process ofpublic 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 contentmentioned above, compelled belief, and authoritarian methods will not advance the critical thinkingand open discussion that are central to the civic standard.The standard’s emphasis on participation requires a focus on “people skills” (such as understandingand working with others) in addition to important cognitive skills (such as reading and math). Theemphasis on participation also provides a rationale for a