Originally published Feb 21, 2015
Written by Paul Dail
On Saturday, Feb. 14, The Independent reported on SB60, the American Civics Education Initiative. Proposed by Sen. Howard Stephenson of Draper, SB60 would mandate high school students to pass the same citizenship test taken by immigrants seeking United States naturalization. However, the students would be held to higher expectations, both in the number of questions they would be asked and the percentage required to pass.
First off, let me dispel the notion that this isn’t an important issue and that legislators are wasting their time on it. The fact of the matter is that at the heart of SB60’s stated intent, Stephenson is correct in asserting that we live in a largely uneducated society when it comes to the workings of our government.
This lack of knowledge transfers into several aspects of society, not the least of which I believe is voter turnout at national and local elections. In November of 2014, midterm elections were held, and only 41 percent of registered voters in Washington County turned out.
While some might say this apparent sign of apathy is a result of it being just midterm elections and the fact that it’s not too hard to guess which way races are going to go in southern Utah, a look at national numbers reveals a similarly discouraging trend. According to the Bipartisan Policy Center, “Voter turnout dipped from 62.3 percent of eligible citizens voting in 2008 to an estimated 57.5 in 2012.”
Perhaps if more young people were familiar with the running of the government by the time they turned 18 years old—as opposed to just a vague memory from fifth grade social studies—there might be a higher voter turnout. And perhaps even more than that, it might eliminate the tendency of many to vote straight party without bothering to actually look into their preferred party’s candidates and issues.
Unfortunately, according to the Salt Lake Tribune, the Utah House of Representatives just voted down HB200, which would create a task force to study why Utah has such low voter turnout and attempt to remedy it, so it would appear SB60 is the legislature’s answer for this problem.
Having said I do believe being better informed is a step in the right direction, I don’t believe SB60 is the right way to go about achieving this for several reasons.
On the most minor level, there are simply concerns regarding testing protocol. It has been proven that even the smartest of students, who may know all of the information, can still suffer from test anxiety which results in poor performance, especially if the particular test means the difference between a diploma and no diploma.
Additionally, there may be extenuating circumstances in the child’s life which may adversely affect their performance, such as a recent death, divorce, or other trauma. As mentioned in The Independent article, Salt Lake Sen. Jim Dabakis had attempted to amend SB60 to include a provision for the state school board to consider these situations on an individual basis, but the amendment failed. I don’t believe it should have.
Then there is the “test cramming” aspect. If the test was given on a specific date, chances are—like most teenagers—students would cram all the information in so they could pass the test and then forget everything upon walking out the door.
While many proponents of the concept behind the American Civics Education Initiative believe that kids shouldn’t get a “free ride” just because they were born in this country, this doesn’t mean the same cramming aspect isn’t true of immigrants preparing for the test either. If we gave the same citizenship test to those applicants a year later without any preparation, would they still pass?
Ratcheting up the concerns a bit, it would appear that SB60 also fails to take into account those with special needs. The last year I was teaching high school, at least ten percent of our student population was on an IEP or 504 plan. As teachers, we were told in no uncertain terms that we were basically not allowed to fail a student with an IEP.
Yet here is a proposal that seems destined to make many of those students do just that. Will students with IEPs and 504 plans have testing accommodations? I would imagine. Does that mean they will pass? Nope. And SB60 says that means they don’t get their high school diploma.
Furthermore, as a former teacher, I also have to wonder who is making these decisions for the entire state education system. As one of the more vocal opponents, Sen. Jim Dabakis said, “It should not be the place of the far off legislature to be making the minutiae rules about what goes on in local schools … 99.9 percent of [these mandates] should be decided locally with parents involved, not by legislators who haven’t been in a classroom in forty years.”
I have to agree. This is the same mentality that has led to such legislation as No Child Left Behind. In a Deseret News article, Sen. Gene Davis was quoted as saying that he couldn’t recite everything he learned in kindergarten, but he’s still a good citizen. This raises another point. It seems only fair that if these legislators pass this bill, they should also have to pass the test as well.
Finally, this feels like a case of misguided focus which has led some to question actual intent. Schools and teachers are already graded each year based on how their student perform on end-of-level testing in math, English, and science, but this testing doesn’t decide whether a student will get their high school diploma; failing a specifically required math, English, or science class dictates that.
The same applies for their social studies requirements, and if they have already been tested on this material to pass a class, why are we doing it again? And why just civics? As a former English teacher, I would say it’s just as important to be able to read and write—perhaps moreso (no offense, social studies teachers)—than it is to know the thirteen original colonies or all of the President’s Cabinet-level positions.
As a former colleague of mine who teaches social studies said, “You go to high school and learn 1000 things in several different subjects. So in my opinion it doesn’t make sense to have it all come down to being able to correctly answer 35 questions that are only related to civics. With that said, I strongly believe there should be an overall test required as part of graduation which includes all of the subjects, of which civics would of course be a component.”
The fact that the test would be strictly civics has led some to speculate about the true intent of this legislation, more specifically wondering if it is actually focusing on nationalism—the belief that one’s country is superior to all others—as opposed to the proponents’ claims of a return to patriotism—a pride in one’s country which still allows for improvement.
In response to the original article, a commenter on Facebook stated, “The US has been on a downward spiral into fundamental nationalism since Vietnam. This was not unplanned; it was calculated as a war strategy to keep the citizens behind the ‘war as an economic policy’ model that has made well-placed policy makers obscenely wealthy. This is just one more step in that plan …”
An interesting idea. But that’s a can of worms for another day.
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