Legislative Update # 3 Oct. 27. 2008

FASSS/FCSS Update#3 October 27, 2008


Greetings ---
At the far left is a weekly update from the NCSS Legislative Advocacy group Washington Partners that discusses news about Achieve, Inc. -- the consortium of 34 states that Florida D.O.E. has partnered with and with whom our Chancellor was just in Washington with signing the Algebra II contract with! It also contains some valuable information about the recently convened Forum for Education and Democracy. The report is worth a quick read. (The other files pertaining to Achieve, Inc. were distributed at Friday's FASSS meeting and in an earlier email.)

Achieve, Inc. seems destined to be an increasingly important group on national educational issues. Unfortunately for us in Social Studies, without some intense lobbying to Achieve, this group seems very likely to replicate the SCANS initiative from an earlier generation. (SCANS = Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills which 'left out' the social sciences at that time and which initiated our long decline as a basic core academic subject.) Achieve, Inc. is composed of Governors and CEOs (similar to the SCANS Commission) and seeks improvement in ‘employability skills and increased problem-solving skills to compete in a global economy.’ There is little or no reference to social studies on its national website. The group is often consulted with on the development of rigorous curriculum standards and their review of the new social studies standards for New Jersey represented about the only reference to our curriculum area that I could locate. Another area the group is very interested in is assessment. It assists in the development of rigorous, high quality end of course exams for many states. According to my meager sources, Achieve Inc. has no social studies assessment on the horizon. Without the Governors of some states lobbying for the need of this, such assessments probably won't happen in the near future. (Remember that no governor need worry about how his/her schools compare to any national profile with regard to civic, geographic or historical understanding -- thus I doubt they'll be asking for this without some pressure.)

Section four in the left most PDF file is an update on the Forum for Education and Democracy initiative. This last forum was sponsored by Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Representative John Yarmuth (D-KY) and it appears clear that in all the testimony given here that there is absolutely nothing wrong with not holding any state accountable for its civic mission. The group seems to wish to denigrate current ‘knowledge tests’ such as NAEP and promote activities that ensure ‘team building’, ‘problem solving’ and ‘communication skills’. Interestingly, although NAEP is cited as a test of knowledge, there are performance based items on the social studies tests within NAEP that call for students to do all of these things. Moreover, the clear connection between the lack of state accountability in social studies and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush's signing into law a measure ELIMINATING American History and American Government as high school graduation requirements seems to have been lost on this group. How do we ensure the survival of “democracy” in this nation with such acts?

Again, the absence of noting this inequity of holding states accountable in our area by folks at the national level almost seems to be 'conspiratorial.' The trend from this week's NCSS news doesn't bode well for us. It appears that without more aggressive lobbying on our part we'll continue to have more "contentless-writing" assessments -- as Will Fitzhugh likes to call the SAT -- where students can just get "A's" for their skill of writing and yet demonstrate total ignorance of history or of world events. They can lie, cheat and ‘steal’ their way to a good grade on such ‘writing’ performance assessments. We appear to be going through still another round of re-engineering our math, reading, language arts, writing and science assessments and totally ignoring social studies. With the current state of ignorance about our nation and the world among youth today, this is not only dangerous but suicidal. Unfortunately it appears no voices to counter these recent developments seem evident.

Note: The position of FCSS and FASSS has always been that the best assessments remain those that BALANCE knowledge and skill (such as AP Exams, the NY State Regent's test, etc. Such sentiments and testimony and almost any discussion of the civic mission or our schools seem absent from this week's update.) Let’s hope some folks at the national level will raise their voices to counter this dangerous trend.