How Colleges Forget the Constitution

[Geee]

Real Clear Politics

In 2004, Congress passed into law a requirement that all educational institutions that receive federal funding host an educational program on the U.S. Constitution on Constitution Day, September 17th. The law was proposed by Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) and its text reads as follows:

Each educational institution that receives Federal funds for a fiscal year shall hold an educational program on the United States Constitution on September 17 of such year for the students served by the educational institution.

In the years since, colleges and universities have been less than consistent in following this law. In a survey of thirty highly ranked colleges according to U.S. News and World Report, barely half have programs listed for 2021. Of those, only a dozen could be called “educational” in any sense. For the remaining four, Columbia and Caltech are having its libraries hand out copies of the Constitution, UCLA has the day marked on its university calendar as a "moment of pause" with no further content, and Berkeley is hosting a happy hour with no speaker or other content visible online. 

For the other schools surveyed, many have a single, static page hosted by the financial aid office that mentions Constitution Day, fulfilling a technical requirement, but offering little in the way of educational content.

This is not a new occurrence. In previous years, a significant percentage of schools surveyed did not host Constitution Day events despite receiving millions of dollars in federal grants. Of those that did host events, only a few seemed to mark the day with any serious reflection on the Constitution. Some events used Constitution Day as an occasion to take partisan stances, featuring topics that were unrelated to the Constitution. These included a showing of the documentary “Dark Money” at MIT, a lecture on policing and the control of protests at Northwestern University, a lecture on “Gender Dynamics and Partisan Politics” at Notre Dame, and a dramatic performance of transcripts from the Kavanaugh hearings at NYU.

Elite colleges and universities have often demonstrated their impatience and disdain for patriotic displays. Many prefer displays of public devotion to the cause du jour, which these days means acknowledging the university’s complicity in structural racism or commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

[Valin]

32 minutes ago, Geee said:

Real Clear Politics

In 2004, Congress passed into law a requirement that all educational institutions that receive federal funding host an educational program on the U.S. Constitution on Constitution Day, September 17th. The law was proposed by Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) and its text reads as follows:

Each educational institution that receives Federal funds for a fiscal year shall hold an educational program on the United States Constitution on September 17 of such year for the students served by the educational institution.

In the years since, colleges and universities have been less than consistent in following this law.

 

 

_________________________________________________________________

Question: Which of these future leaders is the Stupidest?

[Geee]

1776 Unites Curriculum Highlights the American Character

Teachers looking for a history and civics curriculum that focuses on America’s promise of securing liberty for all have a new resource: the 1776 Unites curriculum. A creation of 1776 Unites, an initiative of the Woodson Center focused on reviving American education and culture, the curriculum embraces the “ideas of family, faith, and entrepreneurship that have enabled all Americans – including black Americans – throughout history to move from persecution to prosperity.”

As 1776 Unites members wrote in an open letter to the National School Boards Association and local school boards, the curriculum “offers authentic, motivating stories from American history that show what is best in our national character and what our freedom makes possible even in the most difficult circumstances.”

According to entrepreneur and civil rights leader Bob Woodson, it tells stories of “black Americans who seized their own destinies and flourished despite the harsh restrictions imposed by true institutional racism in the form of slavery and Jim Crow.”

The curriculum currently features 15 units for high school students on black entrepreneurs and philanthropists such as Biddy Mason, Elijah McCoy, and Paul Cuffe; athletes such as Jesse Owens and Alice Coachman; and important events from American history such as the Tulsa race massacre. Woodson says that the units released so far have purposefully “covered multiple lesser-known stories of black excellence and resilience from history.”

Access to the curriculum, which has already been downloaded over 20,000 times, is free with registration at the 1776 Unites website. Each unit contains a wealth of resources including lesson plans, primary sources, questions for classroom discussion, a Power Point presentation, multiple-choice questions, learning standards, and more. A curriculum for K-8 students will be released soon.