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Statement
of
Good
afternoon Chairman Alexander. Thank
you for this opportunity to speak on how the American
History Achievement Act (S. 860) can help to strengthen the teaching of American history
and civics. My name is Jim Parisi. As a staff member of the Unfortunately, my state has a long
way to go in this regard. As you know, the
most recent NAEP assessments suggest that American students are less proficient in
American history than in any other core subject. Given the essential civic mission of our
schools, how can this be? One reason is suggested by a 2003
study from the Albert Shanker Institute, a nonprofit institute dedicated to promoting
inquiry and discussion of educational policy issues and named in honor of the late
president of the AFT. This report, Educating Democracy: State Standards To Ensure a
Civic Core[1], evaluates all state history, civics, and social
studies standards for the secondary grades to determine their worth for educating
democratic citizens. That is, viewed as a whole, do the standards embody a common core of
learning that equips citizens to make informed decisions – and are the required
topics clear, concise, and teachable in the fewer than 180 days a year that are typically
available for classroom instruction? The results were mixed. The report
found that only 24 states met or partially met the criteria for specifying a “civic
core” within their standards. But not one of the 48 states in the study had written a
document that had both a clear focus on democracy education and was teachable in the
limited time schools have available. I say 48 states because two states, As the report suggests, the work
of setting standards –deciding what is most important and what is less important or
not important for students to learn – is crucial. We are doing what we can to
rectify the lack of standards in
Mr. Chairman, by introducing S. 860, both you
and Senator Kennedy sent a clear message that good standards are vital because they are
the foundation for teaching and learning in every school. But having them and using them
are different things. Among its other findings, the Gagnon report noted that only 12
states actually say that schools are required to teach, and students are required to
study, the content defined by state standards. In 18 states, the existence of statewide
tests for history or social studies at least implies that most students are required to
learn this content. So, good standards matter. But good assessment matters, too. I
believe that S. 860 could be of great benefit in the creation of
high quality civics and history tests. The
more frequent administration of the NAEP assessment in State
departments of education have a limited capacity to develop and implement any more
assessment programs. Although state and
federal accountability requirements have placed increasing demands on state education
agencies, these agencies around the country are losing staff as a result of state budget
constraints. The Clearly,
if states are to develop high-quality assessments, federal assistance will be needed. By funding these pilot programs, quality models
could be developed for all other states to emulate. And the existence of such testing
programs also would help mitigate the tendency of No Child Left Behind and other
accountability measures to narrow the curriculum toward reading and math and away from the
humanities, arts and social sciences. In
education, getting the basics right is important. But neither can we forget that, since
our nation’s birth, the prime reason for free public education in a common school has
been to nurture politically perceptive, committed citizens.
Mr. Chairman, thank you again for the chance to talk about
this important issue from the perspective of teachers.
I welcome any questions that members of the committee may have about my
statement. [1]For
downloadable excerpts, go to http://www.ashankerinst.org/Downloads/gagnon/contents.html.
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