Education Week - March 16, 2016 - 24

COMMENTARY
n his final State of the Union speech
earlier this year, President Barack
Obama told the audience: "[F]ix our
politics ... uphold your duties as a
citizen ... vote ... speak out." Halt our
"downward spiral," former Senate
majority leaders Trent Lott and Tom
Daschle urge in a recent Washington
Post op-ed. "Democracy requires active engagement, mindfulness, and tolerance," they write.
Active engagement surely includes voting, even
in nonpresidential years and on local matters.
It may include serving in public roles. It also
includes staying abreast of local, national, and
international issues and, perhaps, communicating with elected officials.
Many observers, here and abroad, warn that
the United States cannot meet its domestic
and international responsibilities unless more
Americans are better informed on the issues
and exercise their right to vote.
Preparing students for today's entry-level
careers and freshman-level college courses
is among the goals of the new Every Student
Succeeds Act. The role education needs to
play in making for a functioning democracy,
one Thomas Jefferson saw as crucial, is not
mentioned. The Common Core State Standards appear silent on the skills and knowledge needed to have informed views on issues
such as economic policy, global warming, the
clash of civilizations, globalization, immigration, technological change, and the risks of
terrorism.
Some would argue that preparing for college-with years of language, math, and social studies-would equip students to understand these and other national concerns. In
some high schools, they would be right. But
because citizenship is not explicit in the standards for reading and math-the subjects covered by the common core-no one knows how
many schools succeed in preparing students
to fulfill the duties the president mentioned.
Standards are likely to evolve as ESSA is implemented and states assume more control. As
that evolution happens, it would be well if those
who make education policy at the federal, state,
and local levels keep in mind what participatory
democracy in the 21st century requires.
For example, shouldn't all high school graduates understand how scientists find and challenge "truth"? One need not be a scientist to
think clearly about climate change and energy
policy. Voters should know enough, in the president's words, to "speak out" intelligently about
nuclear weapons and genetic modification. This
knowledge is not the same as the content of
the typical chemistry test. The Next Generation Science Standards, for instance, provide an
opportunity to enhance students' knowledge of
current issues.
Math standards should also be modified to
support citizenship. The 8th grade commoncore standards include the ever-useful: "Use
square root and cube root symbols to represent solutions to equations of the form x2 =
p and x3 = p, where p is a positive rational
number." Although the math standards include statistics, these concepts are rarely
applied to important public facts or choices,
such as understanding income inequality
or alternative plans for tax reform. Today's
standards fail to promote the financial literacy needed to make sense of student debt,
let alone banking reform.
Adding the goal of informed citizens would

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also affect other curricula. Many high school-
and college-graduates know little of the history or economics of the Great Depression or
the Great Recession. Such knowledge would
help them evaluate the 2016 presidential
candidates' economic proposals in a way that
details of the French and Indian War will not.
Employers and managers have been surveyed
countless times in the last 25 years about what
work requires of schools. They consistently
respond that communication-oral and written-collaboration, critical thinking, planning,
creativity, and other "soft" skills play a key role
in workplace success.
These skills closely match those required
for citizenship, and many schools are already
using project-based learning to teach these
soft skills. Students in High Tech High School
here in San Diego, for example, have studied
historical movements that resulted in social
and political change. They had to answer the
question: What would you fight for? In this and
other well-designed projects, students use and
engage with interesting visual representations
of numerical data.
When projects are successful, students learn
that productive collaboration takes more than
just being assigned to a team. But students
need to be explicitly taught to work well together. There are ample opportunities for students to explore how astronauts working on
the International Space Station for months-
or even years-at a time work together, or how
legislators working on a bipartisan bill collaborate. Students who are invited to role-play in
these or other contexts can learn how to solve
complex problems, while studying the details
of important events.

Citizenship

Be a Goal of Education?

H
André da Loba for Education Week

By Arnold Packer

The United States cannot meet its domestic and
international responsibilities unless more
Americans are better informed on the issues
and exercise their right to vote."

igh school graduates
should have a sense of
how governments at all
levels set budgets; they
should be introduced to
time-management techniques used for projects in
the public or private sector. Knowing how to manage money and time
is crucial to becoming an engaged citizen and
a successful employee, and to handling other
adult responsibilities. Behaviors such as tolerance and integrity are important in politics and
employment. History courses, by illuminating
what this has meant to real people in concrete
situations, can address these qualities.
As states determine standards for high
school graduation, they should pay attention
to what those who have been working in public
policy think is necessary to have an informed
electorate. Sens. Lott and Daschle, as well as
President Obama, have valuable insights. So
do those in the media who target their writing to meet their average reader's knowledge
base. A national commission that included
previously elected public officials, media, and
college faculty could provide useful input as
governors and state superintendents ponder
what their high school graduates should know
and be able to do.
"[F]ocus on our future," President Obama admonished the country, "change the system."
Youngsters who fulfill their duties as citizens
are essential to that task. n
ARNOLD PACKER was the assistant secretary for
policy, evaluation, and research in the U.S. Department
of Labor during the Carter administration. Previously,
he was the first chief economist of the U.S. Senate
Budget Committee.

FOR DISADVANTAGED
STUDENTS, NEW SAT
IS FIRST STEP

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Education Week - March 16, 2016

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