The author submitted a similar letter to Education Week which was published it April 14, 2004.
I’ve just finished reading the recommendations of the National Assessment Governing Board’s (NAGB) report "12th Grade Student Achievement in America: A New Vision for NAEP" and couldn’t be more alarmed ("Panel Recommends State-Level NAEP for 12th Graders," March 10, 2004).
The word "citizen" appeared once or twice in the report and, at one point, the importance of students’ knowledge of history and civics was even put into writing. The Reports’ plan, however, to place History, Geography, Civics, Economics, and other social studies disciplines on the ‘back burner’ has caused me to be more than a little upset.
I have followed National Assessment of Educational Progress reports (popularly known as the “Nation’s Report Card”) for over 30 years, and NAGB, the U.S. Department of State, and Congress have never had any interest in doing state-by-state comparisons in U.S. history, civics, geography (and now, the new world-history and economics disciplines). As a result, all states today operate totally in the dark with regard to how their students stack up against peers in neighboring states and across the nation.
When I initially came across the report, I was left unguarded and a bit hopeful. After all, perhaps now there might be something positive from NAGB. Since 9/11, the nation has seen a revitalization of concern over students’ civic awareness. The twelfth grade could, after all, be seen as preparing students for the only career they will all have upon graduation—that of citizen.
The recent completion of American history and American government courses for almost all the nation’s students would present an almost perfect curriculum alignment for such an opportunity. We might never have had such comparisons at grades 4 and 8 like those in the other subjects, but we could perhaps learn to live with a capstone understanding of such content as an exit picture of how well we had prepared our students for their careers as consumers, workers, voters, or as servicemen and women.
Needless to say, I was totally shocked to find that, rather than recommend such state comparisons for grade 12, the governing board is going to continue testing these subjects only as a "national representative sample" and only "if resources permit." Does this mean "never"? Either the report’s authors are hypocrites, the states truly don’t care about civic efficacy, or the maxim "ignorance is bliss" is astonishingly accurate.
Might I mention that millions of students take the ACT and the SAT, and while the NAGB report very accurately points out this isn’t everyone, these tests do provide a lot more data than we have concerning what our students know about their governmental and economic systems, the nation’s past, or the world in which they live.
Help me understand why it is that reading and mathematics will be assessed every two years, science and writing every four years, and history, civics, geography, and economics once every generation ("resources permitting"), or not at all? This represents the "best thinking" of NAGB? And of course, let’s continue not to hold any state accountable for any of these disciplines. This is wonderful news in light of the nation’s increasing diversity and the fact that an ever-higher number of immigrants crossing our borders now come from nations without established democratic traditions.
As important as it may be among the states to compare 12th-grade student performance in our overly tested areas (reading and math), wasn’t civic knowledge at one time a primary reason for public education? Wasn’t it among the first NAEP assessments?
Isn’t it true that states are moving away from their own civic assessment programs due to a lack of emphasis and scorekeeping at NAEP? (My count shows Maryland, Maine, and Washington as having recently disbanded such programs. In Florida, we’ve been lobbying since 1986 to know what our students understand regarding civic education!) The NAGB plan will undoubtedly encourage many more states to disband what remains of their civic assessments. One wonders what the Founding Fathers would say of this plan.
Survey after survey—the governing board’s own often-delayed NAEP assessments included—point out that urban students can name more alcoholic beverages than they can U.S. presidents; that Mexican young adults ages 18 to 24 can better identify than American students the location of the United States, the approximate population size of the United States, who the Taliban and al-Qaida are, and the locations of such places as the Pacific Ocean, Russia, Japan, and Italy. Additional surveys show that American students lack an understanding of the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, and some of the most basic principles of American government and economics.
One can only assume that the authors of the report feel comfortable with this level of performance.
Finally, I compliment the NAGB on their stroke of genius of encouraging the other, ‘nonessential subject-area’ disciplines to fight amongst one another over what few "resources" exist. If we don’t like the lineup of priorities for future assessments as they’ve recommended them, we’re to lobby NAGB to move us to the head of the line over the others. Keep us all fighting among ourselves so we’ll have no time to do battle with the report’s authors, ’eh?
Based upon the recommendations of this report, I guess it is safe to presume the National Assessment Governing Board is now actually hostile to civic education. What facts could possibly be cited to prove otherwise? I’m old enough to remember the example of an earlier champion of Civic Education, former Chief Justice Warren Burger, who resigned his position on the Court in the summer of 1986 in order to become national Chairman of the Bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution Committee for the purpose of giving the nation, as he called it – ‘a needed lesson in civics’. Where is our Warren Burger of today?
Jack Bovee
Legislative Chair, Florida Council for the Social Studies, Lehigh Acres, Fla.
The writer is a 30-year social studies educator, a former elementary school principal, and now the coordinator for K-12 social studies in Collier County, Fla. [Editors note: NAEP assessments are given in grades 4, 8, and 12 and state-by-state comparative data for grades 4 & 8 have always been provided for reading, writing, math, and science. Virtually every state department of education website contains numerous newsletters, articles, and data comparing how children in that state compare with peers across the nation. On April 14, Education Week reported “Mr. Bush wants to broaden participation in NAEP, often referred to as "the nation’s report card," to measure the reading and math skills of 12th graders in every state” and has thrown his support behind the measure. The NAGB website states: “The recommendations would alter NAEP in significant ways. Your views on the recommendations are important and will be considered carefully. You may email comments (Ray.Fields@ed.gov) or mail them to: Mr. Ray Fields, National Assessment Governing Board, Suite 825, 800 North Capitol Street, NW Washington, DC 20002. Please submit your comments by June 30, 2004.]
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