One advantage of this website is that it enables powerfully written letters to embed hyperlinks to important documents to provide instant 'evidence' to the points we wish to make to legislators, news editors, leaders of civic groups or even colleagues. Here is one 'informal' email that was quickly thrown together to demonstrate to a community leader across the state the position of FASSS/FCSS during the 2009 legislative session. For this reason, legislative committee members should be very familiar with the resources on the webpage!
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Hello Rich ---
I’ve heard plenty about the book, but haven’t a copy and thus can’t comment. I put it up with Mark Levine’s “Men in Black” (which I have read) and some others on the Constitution. It’s on my list to ‘read’ this summer.
Civics is vital, but so are the other strands of the ‘social studies’ --- American History, World History, Economics, and Geography. We’re not opposing the current CIVICS campaign, indeed some of my best friends are leading that charge, but many of us feel ALL of the social studies strands need taught and assessed. The new version of HB0013 (Rep. McBurney) in Tallahassee has been amended to no longer assess these other strands of Social Studies. It would ONLY assess civics and ONLY at the seventh grade. There are some other problems with the bill – down the road, if a student failed the state’s end of course civics exam by a single point, for example – that student would be denied credit in the course, one day’s poor work thus negating the other 179 days in the course! NO educator I know embraces such a thought and Florida doesn’t do this for FCAT. Maintaining this logic will mean the civics exam must be a ‘minimum test’ – something else we would oppose. For more information you may want to add to your ‘favorites’ our legislative website at http://fasss-fcss-legislative-news.blogspot.com/ . The letter of ‘concern’ on the Civics Bill may be found on page https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh-RNnawWv2bW6YF78rrLeA4luk9FwiQZtilXifdUDvejZsssSyVqYAjzISACXs83IxCuy60RZfpP8zNwcX-ldF0Ne73FkEoJo7bA-cMxcvdWKNhjKz7twdV07k5cLjkLgEek_PtDPVvQ/s1600-h/FCSS+Position+on+CS+H0013.bmp of that site. (Hoover your ‘mouse’ over the document, then ‘click’ to bring it to full size for reading/Printing.)
There are already several bills in existence that requires civics be taught – one that has been on the books for many, many years is called “Florida’s Required Instruction Statute”. You may find many references to ‘requiring’ the teaching of the “Constitution” and “Bill of Rights” and “Declaration of Independence” as well as the content of specific history, economic education and patriotism in this kaw. You may find a copy of that law on our website at http://collier.k12.fl.us/CandI/ss/Docs/legnews/RequiredInstructionStatute.pdf If you want other examples of other bills requiring civics be taught let me know.
The MAIN PROBLEM rests in the assessment of this content. As I mentioned to your group in my visit, this has NEVER been done in Florida and to assess ONLY the civics strand now is only 25% of the battle in my own personal view. It would be tantamount to assessing only “biology” and not the rest of the sciences, or only ‘geometry’ in all the fields of mathematics. (Ask Bernadette Bennett in your county for her thoughts on this, too, for another opinion though.)
At the VERY LEAST, we ‘supervisors of social studies’ endorse the assessment of Civics AND History at the state level. You can’t have one without the other. And assessing ONLY civics would leave out much in our history, let alone a great deal of world geography and economics. And by the way, when you talk to legislators be sure to point out that Florida is only one of TWO southern states that do not assess social studies in any manner. (See evidence on our website go to: http://collier.k12.fl.us/CandI/ss/Docs/Assessments%20by%20State.pdf ) Mind, you we ALWAYS preface our comment with the need to assess ALL of our curriculum strands.
At the national level, there is a bill that would correct much of our problem -- by holding the states accountable by comparing their students’ performance in the areas of civics and history on a periodic basis-- and despite what some might refer to as the “pork” that is in it, I’m convinced it’s the only thing that will help! At the very end of this bill are a few words and a few dollars to actually begin to hold up to ten states accountable for teaching civic and historical literacy!! The rest of the bill includes hundreds of millions of dollars for other projects, thus it may or may not ‘pass’ Congress.
Information about this NATIONAL measure (sponsored by Kennedy, Byrd, and Alexander) may be found on our site at these links: (1) http://fasss-fcss-legislative-news.blogspot.com/2009/03/fasss-urges-congress-to-pass-naep.html
(2) http://fasss-fcss-legislative-news.blogspot.com/2009/03/florida-pushes-to-reform-naep-expand.html
(3) http://fasss-fcss-legislative-news.blogspot.com/2009/04/nche-endorses-s659-pg-1.html (page one) and
(4) http://fasss-fcss-legislative-news.blogspot.com/2009/04/nche-endorses-s659.html (page two)
In conclusion, social studies professionals have been fighting since 1988 (SINCE 1988!!) to get Florida to hold our districts and schools accountable for all the content described in the states’ ‘required instruction statute’ cited above. (By the way, did you notice any (ANY!!) mention of reading, mathematics or even science in that bill? Evidence of our battle in 1988 may be found at: http://collier.k12.fl.us/CandI/ss/Docs/legnews/1988FASSSLetter.pdf ) And again, we’d like to see ALL of the social studies assessed, not just ‘one’ strand of our curriculum.
Many groups have endorsed the idea of testing all of the social studies over the years. Here’s an impressive one dating back to 2001 at http://collier.k12.fl.us/CandI/ss/Docs/legnews/LWV%20Letter%20to%20Sec.%20Horne.pdf . If you and your organization would like to ‘go on record’ calling for the same, it would be a great stimulus to doing things ‘the right way’. I would be delighted to add your group to a growing list of organizations calling for this necessary step. But I urge we do it ‘right’. Getting ‘one-fourth a loaf’ may be an excuse to never give us the rest! And given the sorry state of legislative history on this matter, this is no idle ‘worry’. For an example of how bad things got over one simple bill which the ENTIRE House of Representatives once voted for and ALL MEMBERS of the Senate Education Committee see “An Example of How an Eminently Worthy Measure Repeatedly Fails to Become Law” at http://www.collier.k12.fl.us/ss/Docs/legnews/History%20of%20Progression%20law.pdf
Thanks again for being a great supporter of our cause. I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Jack Bovee
Legislative Chair, Florida Association of Social Studies Supervisors and Florida Council for the Social Studies
