Date: December 16, 2003
Subject: Civic Virtue

The writing committees for the Academic Standards are wrapping up their work. In the Saint Paul Pioneer Press, Paul Spies of MAPSSS said that the standards should be pronounced "dead on arrival" at the legislature. Julie Quist of EdWatch was interviewed but was not mentioned in John Welsh's article. Again, the Department of Education was portrayed as the standards' lonely only defenders.

An article in a recent issue of Education Next makes the case against teaching civic virtue in the schools, however it is defined by conservatives or liberals. Schools, the writer asserts, should be left do doing what they do best -- teaching knowledge and skills. I urge you to read it.

I'll hide my ideology if you hide yours. Unfortunately, it is likely to be a battle royale of ideologies and worldviews as the standards drafts move to the most partisan place in the state next month: the Legislature.

Click here for a formatted version of the expert review comments from the previous post below.

The writing committees and the Commissioner are due to release their final draft tomorrow or Thursday. Stay tuned.

Date: December 4, 2003
Subject: Thoughtful praise for the draft standards

During this lull in the targeted attacks on individual committee members and Commissioner Yecke, I thought it would be useful to return our attention to the draft itself and review some of the comments from the expert reviews:

"Overall I believe the Minnesota standards are outstanding, among the best that I have seen in reviewing many state documents. This is true for a number of reasons. First of all, any state standards should clearly delineate what is most important for students to know as future citizens in American democracy… Moreover, the draft is balanced and inclusive, and provides a ‘warts and all’ approach that covers the negative as well as the positive aspects of American history…The standards also thoroughly examine social and cultural history, geography, economics, civics and government, as well as political and intellectual history and ideas."

John Fonte, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute

"…it is fair to say that [the draft standards] ask that students know more, certainly more in terms of detailed knowledge than does the current scheme, Profile of Learning. I am sympathetic to the new approach, largely because it does ask that students have some fact base upon which to frame their conceptual understanding. It is hard to argue, for example, about the correctness of civil disobedience, if you don’t know something about the life and times of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. The trend across the country, moreover, seems to be mostly in the direction you are headed, but not without controversy. Clearly, the struggle is not to let the standards debate be tyrannized by dichotomies, with facts vs. thinking…On balance, I would give you high marks for having made real progress in that regard."

Kermit L. Hall, President and Professor of History, Utah State University

"These are the first standards I have been asked to review about which I had no major concerns. In both American and world history, in geography, and in economics they are easily the best standards I have ever seen. They will be a model for the nation."

Dr. Jerry L. Martin, Chairman, American Council of Trustees and Alumni

"If Minnesota adopts the new standards in something like their current form, it will be a huge step forward for teaching children in the state about the USA and other major civilizations of the world."

Diane Ravitch, Research Professor of Education at New York University

"I applaud you and your department for moving toward content-based standards…One could argue that defining standards in this way leaves no scope for critical thinking, for showing students that the facts we often take for granted are not so factual after all. This was the view of some of my History Department colleagues…My sense is that we have gone too far in this direction already, so that we get incoming students who are quite ready to question whatever they are told, which is fine as far as it goes, except that they themselves sometimes seem to know almost nothing that is worthy of being questioned. Thus instead of showing high school graduates that things are not as simple as they may think – the college teacher’s role – we have to spend time showing them what they should have learned at a lower level, so as to put question marks around it. In sum, it’s past time for a strong push in terms of standards that have recognizeably to do with History and Geography, time and space."

James D. Tracy, Department of History, University of Minnesota

The full text of these reviews, as well as the Science draft reviews, are available on the Minnesota Department of Education web site.

Date: December 2, 2003
Subject: As Seen in City Pages

For about a week after I was mentioned in the November 12 City Pages, hits to the Minnesota Education Reform News web site (including this blog) went up significantly, but they have since died down to normal levels.

In case you missed it, the article by Britt Robson, "Cooking the books," is a fine example of liberal reporting. The headline is a clever play on words (as I writer myself I appreciate a good pun), with the subtitle "Right-wingers divine new education standards." "Right-wingers" is a good emotionally-charged choice of words, which he repeats in the article. I am not sure why the verb "divine" was chosen: Webster defines it as "to discover intuitively," "to discover or locate (as water or minerals underground) usually by means of a divining rod," or ": "to practice divination : PROPHESY; to perceive intuitively."

Next Robinson says that the committee was chosen by the Department of Education to "concoct" the standards. He continues, "It was hard to pick the most egregiously right-wing standard set by the committee."

"Was it that all seventh-grade students are to know the significance of the four references to God in the Declaration of Independence?"

Why is this a right-wing standard? There are four references to God in the Declaration of Independence, that's a fact.

"Or maybe that first-graders must understand the definition of 'opportunity cost'? Entrepreneurship is cited in the standards more than three times as often as anything regarding the nation's labor movement."

Aren't there any liberal entrepreneurs?

"The Declaration of Independence is erroneously referred to as "the founding document that sets forth the principles for our nation" (that would be the Constitution)..."

There's that pesky Declaration of Independence again (see previous blog entry).

"...and the committee claims that the framers of the Constitution 'secured the equal rights of all citizens' (which would have been news to women and slaves, among others). "

Has the United States always lived up to the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence and Constitiution? No, but they did establish the rights that made possible women's suffrage, equal employment opportunity, the civil rights movement, the end of slavery, and many other protections available in America first. Remember the 1989 reading of the Declaration in Beijing's Tiananmen Square? Is this merely right-wing spin?

"How were these and countless other claims outside the political mainstream approved?"

Actually, it's still a draft document that will not be submitted for "approval" until the Legislature convenes in February. How do you define "the political mainstream?" By looking who won the 2002 elections? Good attempt to marginalize the draft.

"The composition of the committee reflected the political bias of Yecke—who has ties to the Bush administration—and the [Fordham] foundation."

Yes, the committee was appointed by the Commissioner of Education, who was herself appointed by the governor to implement his education agenda. The larger point is, the process implemented by the commissioner is the most public in state education history, one that has made the ongoing public debate — in public hearings, newspapers, talk radio, and web sites — possible. It would have been so much simpler to implement new standards in administrative rule and leave the public out of the process. There has been and will continue to be so much public and legislative oversight in this process that the final product cannot help but reflect what the majority of Minnesotans want.

"...those concerned about a right-wing takeover of classroom learning should pay attention."

Funny, I don't remember CP sounding the alarm about the left-wing takeover of public education.

"Someone really is after us... (the NEA and its affiliates) have been singled out because of our political power and effectiveness at all levels -- because we have the ability to help implement the type of liberal social and economic agenda that (they) find unacceptable."

—Robert H. Chanin, National Education Association general counsel

Keep those cards and letters to the editor coming. We won't always agree, but at the end of the day we will create standards of which we can all be proud. As President John F. Kennedy said, "Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring those problems which divide us."

Date: December 1, 2003
Subject: America's Divorce Document

Liberals have signaled where one of the battle lines for the Social Studies standards will be drawn: the Declaration of Independence. Expect the talking points to portray the Declaration as nothing more than a "separation document" or "divorce decree," while the U.S. Constitution is portrayed as the "true" foundational document of our country.

Is there more at stake here than an esoteric, scholarly debate?

The Declaration technically has "no legal standing," as state Senator Steve Kelley declared in the Senate chamber last spring. Unfortunately for liberals, this also means that the Declaration is not open to "interpretation" by the courts, and therefore cannot "evolve" or be changed by judicial activism or amendment.

The Declaration of Independence contains the foundational principles of the United States. These principles are included in the current draft of the Government and Civics standards. Those who disagree with these principles have a strong interest in deemphasizing the Declaration in favor of the Constitution.

As with memorization and higher order thinking skills, Western culture and world cultures, the greatness of America and her warts, the Declaration of Independence and Constitution are obviously not mutually exclusive. Students need to know and understand both documents, and they both belong in the Government and Civics standards.

Date: November 19, 2003
Subject: My recent letters to the editor

To the editor (Star Tribune):

While we pat ourselves on the back over Minnesota's first-place rank in the National Assessement of Educational Progress (NAEP) math assessment, we should understand that the role of the NAEP is to enforce compliance with the "voluntary" national standards under No Child Left Behind. Since the Profile of Learning was aligned with the national "fuzzy math" standards ("a large percentage of constructed-response questions and questions that require the use of calculators and other materials" according to the NAEP web site), and what gets tested gets taught, it should come as no surprise that we're number one.

To D.J. Tice (Pioneer Press):

Thanks for another cogent analysis of the debate over the draft social studies standards. Detractors of the new standards continually elevate "higher order thinking skills" and disparage "life-draining, robotic rote memorization, regurgitation, and parroting of hundreds of mere trivial factoids." Talk about a false choice.

Minnesota's kids, as you put it, are "better off knowing a few facts, if only so they can understand the opinions they're 'forming.'" In social studies, "higher order thinking" without a foundation of facts is indoctrination. Lenin understood this when he said, "Take away a people's heritage and they are easily persuaded."

Date: November 17, 2003
Subject: The long knives

The debate over the Academic Standards has gotten even more bitter and polarized over the past week.

On Saturday, the U.S. History subcommittee met and restored some of the specifics from the "examples" column into the benchmarks. On Sunday, Norm Draper of the Star Tribune, in his news report (not opinion) "Rewriting history is proving to be tricky," stated in the lead paragraph, "Minnesota teachers won't have a choice about whom and what they can teach now." Talk about a call to arms; I can almost see the letters to the editor this week. Yet later in the article, committee member Todd Flanders was quoted, "This whole thing is a process, and there is a give and take. There is reflection. There is deliberation."

Friday's Twin Cities Public Television show, "Almanac" featured American Indian activist Clyde Bellecourt repeating his comment that Commissioner Cheri Pierson Yecke is "scholastically retarded," and again called for the Senate to deny her confirmation next year.

Former Governor Arne Carlson crowed over Minnesota's outstanding National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores in math, claiming vindication for the Profile of Learning, as everyone including the Department of Education fails to report the details about how the Profile of Learning was aligned with fuzzy national math standards and therefore the NAEP, so of course Minnesota's students score "high" on this test — look at what was measured (for more on the NAEP, see http://www.edwatch.org/ and click on Federal issues).

Liberal/progressive vs. conservative. Rote memorization and parroting of trivial factoids vs. higher order thinking. Slave-owning aristocratic white men who didn't want to pay their taxes vs. the conquered, subjugated, exploited, and enslaved.

I would expect and was prepared for the 2004 legislative hearings to be contentious, partisan, and even bitter. But the citizen standards writing process until then should be lively, interactive, and as Flanders said, characterized by give and take, reflection, and deliberation. Instead of coming to the table with constructive criticism and suggestions, opposition groups have brought out the long knives of identity politics, polarizing rhetoric, broad brush generalizations, and false dichotomies, starting with Rep. Jim Davnie's media appearances in September, when the first drafts were released.

As President John F. Kennedy said, "Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring those problems which divide us." I dare say Kennedy would mourn the passing of the days of the "happy warrior" Hubert Humphrey and the nonpartisan Minnesota legislature.

I also wonder whether the Commissioner, a former history teacher who stands by her standards admirably and unequivocally, should be quite so out in front at the public hearings and in the media, when members of her quite capable staff could be deflecting the brickbats and taking a few of the lumps. As Christine Jax said famously, it's not her job to advocate for education, it's her job to implement the governor's education agenda. Yet what if she used her bully pulpit to gather together Education Minnesota, superintendents, principals, and school boards, present a ten-year vision for public education in Minnesota, and enlist their support in making it a reality? And what if in return she offered to go to bat for them at the legislature?

Date: November 7, 2003
Subject: The fog of war

"War is the realm of uncertainty; three quarters of the factors on which action is based are wrapped in a fog of greater or lesser uncertainty." —On War, Carl von Clausewitz

Now that we are coming down the home stretch to the final draft of the social studies (and science) standards, I sense that the public at large is having trouble cutting through the "fog of war" over the U.S. History standards in particular. They are feeling some of the fear factor when the education establishment uses straw-man terms like "factoids," "drill and kill," "rote memorization," "dead white man history," and say there won't be time for any critical thinking after we fill our wee ones' heads with such trivia. Conservatives fear a return to the Profile of Learning under a new name, if all of the specifics are stripped from the U.S. History standards and overruled by a new history skills standard filled with process and devoid of knowledge.

In his November 5th commentary in the Saint Paul Pioneer Press, "Commissioner Yecke, tear down this wall (of ignorance)!," D.J. Tice cuts past the content vs. process debate by reminding us that we need both. The larger question is, what is the purpose of social studies? Is it, Tice asks, "to teach schoolchildren that American history is just another sorry sequence of 'tragedies and injustices' (like every other nation and culture on earth)" or that it is "a special experiment in human liberty whose ideals and institutions, however imperfect and imperfectly realized, have produced as decent and successful and improvable a society as humankind has known."

We need to know about America's history, warts and all as the Commissioner has said, without forgetting to teach our children what makes America great.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant -- and free -- in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." —Thomas Jefferson

The Albert Shanker Institute sent the Academic Standards Committee a copy of their report published in September 2003, called "Teaching for Democracy." Endorsed by a wide range of prominent citizens, scholars and educators—including former President Bill Clinton, President Reagan's UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, historian David McCullough, essayist Richard Rodriguez, NAACP President Kweisi Mfume, actor Christopher Reeve, and Middle East scholar Fouad Ajami—the document calls for an expanded course of study in history, civics, and the humanities, providing students with a full, warts-and-all understanding of our own and other nations. It is an important document that unfortunately was not made available to the committee until last Saturday's meeting.

In the weeks ahead, the social studies writing committee needs to blow past the fog of war, and carefully consider: what is the purpose of social studies education? Is it enough to teach our children to be "active citizens in a democracy," or must we first pass them the torch of the principles upon which our country was founded, to ensure that freedom is preserved? As Diane Ravitch said, "Our ability to defend -- intelligently and thoughtfully -- what we as a nation hold dear depends on our knowledge and understanding of what we hold dear." Knowledge must proceed "critical thinking;" otherwise we end up with a cohort of ignorant activists, which is already happening.

Date: November 4, 2003
Subject: Guess who's coming to dinner?

A variety of observers were present for Commissioner Yecke's opening remarks on Saturday. Some stayed the entire day, most left throughout the day, which ended around 5:00 p.m. Those who stayed generally sat just beyond the table where each strand subcommittee met. One of the observers stood over my shoulder a few times. Groups represented that I am aware of:

• EdWatch (formerly Maple River Education Coalition)
  
• MAPSSS
  
• Minnesota Historical Society and Minnesota Human Rights Commission, representatives of which were permitted direct participation in the committee's work even though they were not on the committee
  
• Minnesota Center for Community Legal Education (promotes the federal curriculum, We The People, and submitted comments on the first draft standards under the name "MN Civics Group")
  
• Unite 196
  
• Minnesota PTA

The number of citizen observers was greater for this meeting than for each of our previous two meetings.

Nelson Garcia from WCCO-TV, with a videographer, covered the event and interviewed Marc Doepner-Hove and others. Norman Draper from the Star Tribune interviewed Julie Quist from EdWatch, and others, for his story that ran in Sunday's paper. His photog took pictures of the Commissioner and of a minor confrontation that took place at the 8:00 a.m. press conference. There was apparently an Associated Press reporter there, because the AP ran a detailed account of the day. John Welsh from the Pioneer Press also reported on the meeting.

Date: November 3, 2003
Subject: Social studies smackdown!

It's going to take me a few sessions over the next couple of days to debrief you on Saturday's meeting of the Social Studies Academic Standards Committee. I will be giving you the nitty-gritty eyewitness detail from the inside, including some of the esoteric technical minutiae that you have grown to expect (and love) from this blog, including the dish but no dirt (there really wasn't any "dirt" to report, sorry).

The bottom line is that we won't really know who the "winners and losers" will be until the standards are approved by the legislature during the 2004 session. "Winners and losers" may be the wrong way to look at it, since all sides of the debate are ostensibly on the same "side" (public schools and their students), unless you define the "sides" as those who favor keeping the current process versus those who want to dump the standards-in-progress and start over with a new committee and process.

The Academic Standards Committees have finished or are in the process of finishing their second draft standards. The second draft will go to a writing committee, appointed by the Commissioner from among the committee members. The writing committee will polish and integrate the various strands into a complete social studies standards document, which they will submit to the Commissioner on or before December 15. Department of Education staff will then edit the draft at their discretion before the Commissioner presents the final version to the Legislature.

The Legislature will hold hearings on the final version. Sen. Steve Kelley, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, has announced that he will hold public hearings in January, prior to the start of the legislative session in February.

Having said that, since I sit on the Government & Civics subcommittee, I can say that, as of Saturday, the integrity of our strand was maintained and quality increased. We carefully considered a large volume of public comment. Comments from the Hopkins school district and the Minnesota Civics Group were most prominent in our discussion, since they provided well-organized comments in writing that followed the structure of the standards. In the days and weeks before the meeting, I read hundreds of pages of public comment, plus many standalone letters, "expert" reviews, and other documents, and the MAPSSS web site.

Most of the public comment received was directed at the history standards (both U.S. and world). Most of these comments were repetitive and fell into categories: there are too many standards, the standards are politically biased, why did you leave out this person/event, why did you overemphasize this person/event, too much memorization, you overemphasize "trivial factoids" at the expense of higher order thinking skills, where are the research skills, this benchmark is not age-appropriate.

On Saturday, the various strands (U.S. History, World History, Economics, Geography, and Government & Citizenship) chopped standards and benchmarks, moved many of the names and events out of the benchmark statements to a new "examples" category, and formed a new strand committee called Historical Skills to create the skills standards. A new recommendation to the legislature was approved that would give school districts flexibility to group standards by grade "bands" (K-2, 3-5, 6-8) if they wish, rather than grade-by-grade as they appear in the standards document. (The 9-12 standards are already grouped into a band.) The standards framework was also modified based on comments received from school districts.

So the standards were not merely "tweaked" on Saturday. As Marc Doepner-Hove, a vocal critic of the first draft, said in the Star Tribune yesterday, "We are rewriting the document."

Date: October 31, 2003
Subject:Where's the Beef?

On the eve of the Social Studies Academic Standards Committee meeting, some MAPSSS members are calling for Commissioner Cheri Pierson Yecke's resignation and accusing her of, to put it mildly, misrepresenting the truth in the draft standards. They will present an Internet petition to scrap the draft and start over, with a goal of creating "new" new standards in a year with a committee configured to their liking (replacing lay public with education establishment). But according to the MAPSSS myths-and-facts statement, they are not very far away from the Academic Standards Committee on the substantive issues:

We concur: "MAPSSS wants higher standards that will promote active citizenship and democracy by engaging students in learning important knowledge and skills required of citizens."

We concur: "MAPSSS places a high priority on knowing, interpreting and using facts to foster higher order thinking that is required in today’s complex world."

We concur: "MAPSSS seeks a middle ground between 'process' heavy Profiles and the 'basic knowledge' emphasis of the proposed standards."

We concur: "MAPSSS agrees with supporters of the proposed standards that students should study important founding documents such as the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and important amendments including the Bill of Rights."

We concur: "MAPSSS believes the duly elected conservative Governor has a right to select a conservative Commissioner of Education, work with the legislature to repeal the Profiles, and develop a new or revised set of standards. However, MAPSSS is opposed to any standards for all of Minnesota’s students and schools that are politically and ideologically biased like the proposed standards. Any new set of standards must gain acceptance from various places on the political spectrum, and not be vulnerable to changes in voting patterns from administration to administration."

As President John F. Kennedy said, "Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring those problems which divide us." All of the public hearing theatrics, minority reports, and vitriolic letters to the editor make for superb political theatre. There are intelligent, informed, capable, committed, passionate, and "mainstream" citizens throughout our state. Imagine what superb academic standards we would have if we could only follow President Kennedy's advice.