'Standard' Americans? The National Standards for Civics and Government

Samuel J. Katz
Ohio Wesleyan University

   National standards in education remain an incendiary issue for several reasons. Ideologically, the standards movement finds justification in the promotion of educational equity, ideally a primary justification for public education in a democracy. This commitment to equity and excellence ideally finds its payoff politically and economically, where standards may serve to reinvigorate American democracy and prepare the next generation of American labor to meet foreign economic challenges. Fanaticism, regularly permeating the evening news, reminds us of the veracity of the words of former president of the American Federation of Teachers, Albert Shanker, in his 1995 address to conference of former Soviet-bloc nations.  “Excessive promotion of allegiance to groups, instead of to ideas such as democracy, human rights, and justice, encourages the breakdown of civil society” (Shanker, 1997, p.2). Epistemologically, national standards beg the questions of what knowledge is essential, how to teach it, and how to assess it. These questions may remain academic in the sciences, but in the humanities they evoke passionate debate about America’s history and future. Rather than reflecting the principles of the republic for which they were to serve, skewed or biased standards may in fact become agents of indoctrination rather than enculturation, reinforcing an illusory and largely inequitable status quo. “Public school is , or should be, the place where hope becomes capacity” (Chase, in Meier, p. 43). Whether civics standards help realize this potential or are “…mainly a symbolic ritual masked as an educational policy for reinforcing cultural hegemony” (Merelman, p.56) remains to be seen.

   While an effort to enhance equity in education, national standards are seen by critics as an unprecedented intrusion of the federal power in an area historically controlled by the states. Opponents find the national effort to promote standards an ironic, if not pernicious, threat to the local control of education that has been a cornerstone of American democracy. Such national standards belie their very purpose; how can one promote and nurture democracy by undermining the very structures that define it?

   If debate over national standards in the reveal the “…unresolved cultural disjunctions…” in American life, the volatility of standards for civic education is manifest (Sewall, 1994, p. 17). Coupled with this context of contention is the essential nature of civic education.  a democratic nation needs not only labor to shoulder its industrial burdens, but also an informed, responsible citizenry cognizant and capable of playing its role in the legitimate functioning of government. Without such citizens, democracy will degenerate into a breeding ground for the authoritarian, the opportunist, and the demagogue.

   Part I.  Standards – history and purpose

   The concept of standards in education  possesses a rich lineage beyond the contemporary debate. Concern over fragmentary and uncoordinated schooling brought together the 1892 Committee of Ten, headed by Harvard’s Charles Eliot. The Committee, consisting of university scholars and secondary teachers, identified the key areas in education as language, math, history, and science. Their 1894 report recommended what became the ‘traditional’ high school progression of courses (Sewall, 1994, p. 18). What is striking about the Committee’s recommendations, which remain the basis for most American high school curricula today, is the congruence between the Committee’s emphasis on innovative technique and applied learning and a similar emphasis seen in contemporary standards. Also mirrored in today’s standards discussion is the call for systemic coordination between secondary schools, normal schools, universities and professional schools (Report of the Committee of Ten on Secondary School Studies, 1894, in Calhoun, 1969).

   The Committee called for a similar curriculum for both the college-bound and those terminating their formal education with secondary school (Report of the Committee of Ten on Secondary School Studies). The Victorian optimism of the Committee extended beyond the leveling of America’s educational playing fields to the creation of civil and civilized Americans:

   Literary, artistic, musical and philosophical refinements were taken to be basic provisions of civilized living. The Report of the Committee of Ten on Secondary School Studies was built on Victorian hope and progressive ambition. Child labor laws reflected distress over the exploitation of children by the marketplace, and compulsory education reflected a remarkable and humane effort to provide mental furniture to all young citizens (Sewall, p. 25).

   The Committee’s recommendations, while accepted by mainstream American educators (where they remain “…in pustulating form today” (Sewall, p.23), were not without vocal critics. The effort to mandate education for a nation seemed a hapless and clumsy affair. The most significant assault came from John Dewey, the doyen of American progressive education, whose 1916 Democracy and Education gave voice to objections to national educational prescriptions:

   Like Common Sense or Uncle Tom’s Cabin, it changed the direction and character of a whole segment of American society…  [D]azzled by the redemptive power of general education, Dewey looked upon the educational goals published a generation before as hopelessly inadequate for a democratic people (Sewall, p. 23).

   Reform movements in education throughout the twentieth century continued to return to the epistemological questions which fuel contemporary efforts and concomitant ‘culture wars’ in the humanities. Alarmist (though not necessarily inaccurate) reports, such as Sinclair’s The Jungle or the seminal A Nation at Risk of 1984, effectively synchronized the choruses of reform voices. By coupling the political and social obligations of education with the economic peril the neglect of such responsibilities would bring, A Nation at Risk  terrified readers with a vision of America populated by dullards and half-wits, easy prey for foreign nations with coherent educational systems poised for dominance. Only a generation of ineptitude, complacency, and mediocrity would provide the crucial hold by which these nations could effectively destroy America. No tales of rancid meatpacking could have brought on greater revulsion:

   Our Nation is at risk. Our once unchallenged preeminence in commerce, industry, science, and technological innovation is being overtaken by competitors throughout the world…If an unfriendly power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed  it as an act of war… We have, in effect, been committing an act of unthinking, unilateral disarmament (A Nation at Risk, 1983, p.5).

   The combined effect of Cold War rhetoric and possible Japanese economic dominance echoed earlier panics and struck a sensitive nerve in

   …the land of the hard-headed, whose orthodoxy is that the schools first serve the economy and, now and then, national security or domestic order. So when Sputniks rise or Hondas flow in, or the jobless seem troublesome, it is time for school ‘reform’ to solve our problems (Gagnon, p.2).

   Interestingly enough, the end of the Cold War and one of the strongest economic booms in American history (born of the very generation “at risk”), brought no revision of American attitudes about public education. Based on the failed prophecies of A Nation at Risk, “…teachers in America ought to be congratulated, and someone should be embarrassed by the false alarm… Instead, the ideas that the schools are a disaster, and that fixing them fast is vital to our economy, has become something of a truism” (Kozol, in Meier, p. 11).

   Using crisis to frame educational reform may serve as a brief catalyst for action, but almost always fails those whom reform was to benefit in the first place:

   When the language of pedagogical survivalism takes over, it is not clear… who is waging war on whom. Politicians invoke the language of battle to frighten citizens into activity. Elite policymakers create ‘bogeynations’ to panic citizens about American human capital. Preparing the young to be good adult workers in only one of the purposes of schooling, however. We also need better democrats, more people aware of the common good and willing to work for it. We need capital humans quite as much as human capital…” (Tyack, February 1997, p. 23).

   In particular, Tyack’s warning will ring especially true in the construction, purpose, and analysis of national civic standards.

   Faith in the contemporary standards movement finds fuel in two major sources.  the consistently poor test performance of American students compared to their international counterparts, and the highly publicized success of standards as created and implemented by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics  (Ravitch, August 1992). Both of these also provide useful perspectives on the potential and limitations of standards as they apply to other subjects, particularly civic education, and the elements requisite for standards to succeed.

   Local control of public education does increase the likelihood of variation in standardized test scores, especially when compared to countries with nationalized curricula. In effect, “…American students are not on a level playing field when they are matched with students from countries that offer a program of studies that is coherent, cumulative, and thoughtful” (Ravitch, August 1992, p.7). Rhetoric of inequity is a potent catalyst when combined with political and economic threats. A “…far-flung and highly decentralized educational system…” belies its very purpose for existing if it undermines the political and economic potentials of those it is to serve:

   …the schools are accustomed are accustomed to having a multitude of unordered priorities, a multitude of roles, and a plethora of outcomes, none more important than the others…You might even say that there has been a consensus that no need has precedence over any other need; and that this broad receptivity to bearing all burdens and accepting all social responsibilities has served to unfit the schools for achieving any of its ends (Ravitch, August 1992, p.5).

   Whether the impetus for reform is economically or politically motivated, national standards would provide consensus on what is to be learned and how to measure such learning. Standards are generally acknowledged by proponents and critics alike as being part of a larger, systemic reform initiative. If national standards are to enhance coherence in American education, all facets of American education must be affected:

   Successful standards-based reform requires fundamental reconstruction of educational institutions and systems, so that high standards become the basis not only of the curriculum but of textbooks and other instructional materials, of assessments, of graduation requirements, and of teacher education, certification, and training  (Ravitch, December 1992, p. 29).

   In effect, by acknowledging the systemic requirements of standards, the NCTM proved what is possible. “What the NCTM standards demonstrate is the power of standards. Good standards establish a goal; they create a consensus about what the educational outcomes should be” (Ravitch, August 1992, p.12).

   Standards are the lynchpin for educational reform; they are the yardstick by which the success of various initiatives may be measured. While critics view national standards as a federal intrusion in local control of education, proponents of standards are quick to point out the fallibility of local control (Thernstrom, in Meier, 2000), and that the standards are national, though not federal. Tyack (February 1997) identified tradition of and fidelity to local control a vital resource that national standards fail to honor, let alone utilize. Diane Ravitch, perhaps the most vocal of standards advocates, identified the defining poles of the standards debate as complete federal control of education and unregulated local control.  “These are the Scylla and Charybdis of standards, both to be avoided” (Ravitch, June 1993, p. 769). The delicate conundrum of the symbolic power of federal control  usurping local control and the perception that local schools are failing has been deftly navigated by standards proponents. National standards are voluntary and to date have been constructed by nongovernmental bodies, funded by the Department of Education. This tension between federal and local power is unlikely to diminish; the question remains will the need to preserve this balance remove the teeth from standards and limit their effect? Standards are an effort to coalesce the variation in fifty states into some common sense of what education at various level must entail; local control must be respected, but not at the expense of the health of the nation, both democratically and economically.  

   The United States is one nation, not fifty independent states. There is no such thing as Nevada science, New Jersey mathematics, and Illinois English…students in my neighborhood need to know exactly the same mathematical and scientific concepts that are taught in the best schools in other cities, states, and nations (Ravitch, 1996, p.4-5).

   This national need for ‘world-class’ educations prompts confidence in some proponents of standards-based reform:

   I venture to predict that our nation will find a way to evolve national (not federal) standards because the world of work, education, and communications requires them. If students expect to gain admission to a good university, they had better earn a world-class education, not one that was tailored for Idaho or Vermont (Ravitch, 1996, p. 6).

   Ravitch (December 1992) provided an important distinction that dispels the worries of some critics.  

   National standards will not create a national curriculum. They are goals, and there are many ways to reach those goals. They are being developed by independent, nongovernmental organizations – and they will stand or fall according to their acceptance by teachers, schools, and the wider public” (p.26).

   Standards advocates remind critics that the defining legislation of the Department of Education prohibited the new department from organizing or guiding curriculum (Merelman, 1996). “In funding the standards projects,” wrote Ravitch, “the department made clear that its role was to provide the money and then to get out of the way…it is a federal responsibility to help states reform their own standards in order to preserve federalism and promote both excellence and equity” (Ravitch, June 1993, p.771). Bahmueller and Stimmann Branson (1993) echo Ravitch’s point:

   Although national in scope, [standards] are not federal. They are not mandatory, nor are they a national curriculum. They do not, therefore, threaten the tradition of local decision making in American schools. They must gain whatever influence they can muster from their character and quality alone” (p.41).

   Two final points buttress the standards position. National standards in education already exist, created by the cartel of textbook publishers and standardized test manufacturers (Butler, 1997, and Ravitch, 1993). In the face of this market-driven behemoth, national standards, created by educators, experts, and the communities that will use them, provide a collective means to take back control of education from the education publishing and testing infrastructure. “It is quite logical, then, to predict that the standards will become a marketing tool – a ‘Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.’ Every textbook company will be proud to say that their text conforms in some way to the standards…” (Butler, p. 72). Furthermore, the process of reclaiming control of education via voluntary standards will force the key epistemological and pedagogical questions that standardized testing may obfuscate or ignore.

   Part II.  Standards for civics – construction and critique

   Civic education bears a heavy load in American schools. It is the bulwark of democratic longevity. Harris (1998) wrote “More fundamentally, the considered systematic design of civic education parallels the essentials of both the constitutionalism and the democracy to which it gives access and control” (p.3). More succinctly, civic education “…is not simply a tool for active or effective engagement.  It is constitutive of citizenship itself” (p.4).

   Thus far, we have seen the goals of national voluntary standards in education, and, in the case of the NCTM standards, how such reform can be implemented. In assessing the National Standards for Civics and Government (NSCG), we shall see some of these elements successfully integrated, particularly in the area of assessment, where the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) incorporate the NSCG into its framework (Vontz, 1997). Where the NCTM formula breaks down, however, will be in the larger, systemic reorientation to accommodate the recommendations of the NSCG.

   The NSCG open with a clear goal. “…to help schools develop competent and responsible citizens who possess a reasoned commitment to the fundamental values and principles that are essential to the preservation and improvement of American constitutional democracy” (www.civiced.org/stds_toc_preface.html). They continue with the place of civics within the K-12 school experience.  civics warrant attention as individualized classes and across the curriculum, but as important, the Standards must recognize

   …the importance of the informal curriculum… These relationships should embody fundamental values and principles of American constitutional democracy. Classrooms and schools should be managed by adults who govern in accordance with constitutional values and principles and who display traits of character worth emulating” (www.civiced.org/stds_toc_intro.html).

   In setting such ambitious goals, the NSCG sow the seeds of their failure. Dispositions and skills figure as prominently as content in the goals of the NSCG, for students, teachers and administrators, but content is the only element actually described in the Standards. This is not entirely surprising, as the tradition of local control in American education and the fear of excessive federal usurpation of that control would render any effort to ‘standardize’ school governance pernicious to the NSCG as a whole. Instead, the Standards remind us of the centrality of such behaviors and dispositions, but no suggestions on how to engender, nurture, or assess them.

   The most significant obstacles to the successful implementation of the NSCG relate to the place of civics in the curriculum, both for the K-12 student and for the pre-service teacher. The Standards call for civics to be a guiding theme across and within the curriculum, but also note “Inattention to civic education stems in part from the assumption that the knowledge and skills citizens need emerge as by-products of the study of other disciplines or as an outcome of the process of schooling itself” (www.civiced.org/stds_toc_intro.html). The failure to meaningfully integrate civics into curricula at all levels carries significant consequences for civic participation, the health of American democracy, and the viability of civics standards and systemic educational reform:

   …it is unlikely that one could find any school curriculum, especially for the elementary grades, in which time is regularly scheduled on a weekly, never mind daily, basis for civics or government. The scope and contents of [the Standards] should therefore compel serious thinking about the need to reconceptualize as an academic subject deserving of continuous study that has heretofore been seen as rather amorphous in most grades, and, with the exception of a single civics or government course, as substance that is adequately addressed in courses on U.S. history”  (Stotsky, p.35-36).

   “Relegated to an American government course at grade 12, often only one semester in length,” argues Davis and Fernlund (1995), such limited exposure to civics “…is a sure-fire formula to continue our present citizen malaise”  (p.56,59).

   This failure to integrate civics throughout the curriculum is mirrored by a similar deficiency in teacher education. Currently, civics is subsumed under the umbrella of the social studies, which may contain anything from ancient history to psychology to economics to government classes. There is no specialization or certification for civics teachers, which is hardly surprising given the paucity of civics classes (and this dearth of classes is unlikely to change, as other disciplines, instituting standards of their own, find little discretionary time to share with the emergent needs of civics (Hoff, 1999)).

   The experience of the NSCG continued to diverge from that of the NCTM standards when the American Political Science Association refused to participate in the construction of the Standards (though it did encourage members to participate in an individual capacity). The APSA offered three justifications.  as policy, the Association does not endorse standards or textbooks, the myriad views of its members would preclude consensus, and that the K-12 curriculum’s needs “…are not synonymous with the array of research topic and methods employed by political science as a discipline”  (Mann, 1996, p.47).

   Criticism of the standards takes two forms.  of the standards themselves, and how the concept of nationally directed civics standards threatens American democracy. The volume of the Standards bodes poorly. Ravitch (1996) identified the key factor in the success of standards-based reform as whether the standards actually improve student performance. However,  the content heavy nature of the Standards (versus inquiry based activity) suggests a sluggish classroom transmission.  “The average faculty may see them as insurmountable and simply rebel in frustration and continue with business as usual”  (Butler, p.73).

   In a their assessment of the NSCG, Gonzales, et al. (2001) found a disproportionate emphasis on individual rights over collective responsibilities. Participation in civic action is downplayed, emphasizing a passive citizenry. The effect of such standards is to promulgate the status quo:

   The Civics Standards 9-12 – with their emphasis on knowledge, attitudes, and values to the near exclusion of active, informed participation – do relatively little to ensure that civic knowledge will be translated into effective citizenship that embodies active engagement in civic life (p.122).

   Merelman (1996) agreed with the assessment that the Standards serve the status quo, and that the intended audience of such standards is not within the schoolhouse walls:

   Perhaps the creation of national civics standards and assessments is a ritual of policy nostalgia, creating for policymakers the illusion that genuine progress in political education has at long last begun, and will strengthen the weakening hold of politics on the young… [S]tandards may reassure political elites that ‘something is being done’ to meet a ‘crisis’ in citizenship (p.54).

   [B]ecause they are also symbolic, national standards and assessments in civics will allow policymakers to surmount pluralism, to reproduce these polarities, and to join hands in a ritualized dance of hegemonic public policy (p.57).

   Echoing the service of standards to political careers than to future citizens, William Ayers (in Meier, 2000) blasted the noble goal and nefarious effect of standards.  “This  conservative push, dressed up as a concern for standards, is at its heart a fraud. It promotes a shrill and insistent message, simple and believable in its own right, while it subtly shifts responsibility from the powerful, making scapegoats of the victims of power” (p.65).     

   Both advocates and adversaries of standards-based reform acknowledge that the construction of standards must be an ongoing process, one that reflects the changing needs of the citizenry and the polity. The most significant challenge to the NSCG comes not from content issues, but from the very concept of creating national standards. By reducing (or removing) local input, dialogue and control, national standards co-opt the very people the standards were conceivably designed to serve. In such a context, the standards shift from reflecting American political culture to profoundly influencing it:

   By shifting the locus of authority to outside bodies, [standards-based reform] undermines the capacity of schools to instruct by example in the qualities of mind that schools in a democracy should be fostering in kids – responsibility for one’s own ideas, tolerance for the ideas of others, and a capacity to negotiate differences. Standardization instead turns teachers into the local instruments of externally imposed expert judgement “ (Meier, p.5).

   Much as the NCTM standards succeeded by systemically influencing students, teachers, curriculum developers, teacher educators – both preprofessional and professional, etc., the NSCG are doomed to fail because they sever the links between students, teachers, parents, and government:

   …it is educationally important for young people to be in the company of adults – teachers, family members, and other adults in their own communities – powerful enough to decide important things. They need to witness the exercise of judgment, the weighing of means and ends by people they can imagine becoming…(Meier, p.16-17).

   That our discussion of standards began with the critiques of the father of twentieth century progressive education, John Dewey, it is appropriate to conclude with the critiques of the heir to that throne into the twenty-first century, Theodore Sizer. For Sizer, civics standards are nothing less than an assault on democracy:

   Yes, the community has the right to impose some common values, ones that make our freedom a practical reality. And, yes, the community must expect civility and a readiness to compromise when  compromise is essential. That said, it is the apparent readiness of contemporary government to reach beyond this that signals government’s failure to respect and trust its own people. Without such trust, there can be no democracy (Sizer, in Meier, p. 72-73).

   The goal of educational equity is a noble one. Standards-based reforms may help to achieve this, as evidenced by the success of standards reform in mathematics. The NCTM success also identified the essential elements for standards reform. Without a systemic commitment to reform, meaningful change is unlikely. Given that civics as a discipline occupies a minimal percentage of a student’s career, the lack of professional standards for civics teachers (and even a specialization in civics), the emphasis of current standards on content over participation, and the pernicious effect of nationalized standards on the practice of democracy, it seems highly unlikely that the NSCG will improve civic education or practice. If, as Theodore Sizer writes, “…schools are crucibles of culture…” (p.73), we must be far more attentive to the ingredients and conditions within that crucible so that the outcomes enhance educational equity, balance the needs of the community with the rights of the individual, and fulfill the mandate of public education and the needs of democracy for the next generation.

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