A NY Times article on a 5 year effort on the part of conservative Republicans in Michigan to remove the word "democracy" from the K-12 curriculum to replace it with "constitutional republic," supposedly for the sake of fidelity to the founders. Further, they maintain that curriculum should accentuate national "triumphs" rather than "sins," and pushed for the elimination of such topics as climate change, the Roe decision and all mention of LGBTQ civil rights, among other things. Because K-12 curriculum is left to the discretion of the states, such determinations are possible. The NY Times writes:
The United States, unlike many other developed nations, lacks a national curriculum that defines what students should know. Each of the 50 states can create its own learning standards.
These documents are closely examined. While schools can teach material not included in them, they shape the content in standardized tests, and many educators rely heavily on the standards as they craft lesson plans. Student teachers are trained to use them.
Activists have long seen influencing state standards as an effective way to shape the next generation of voters. In 2010, conservatives on the Texas State Board of Education removed the word “democracy” as a description of American government, prompting protests. (see http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/21/AR2010052104365.html ) Georgia has also debated the term, eventually settling, in 2016, on standards that use the phrase “representative democracy/republic.”
After the initial draft was reported in a local magazine called The Bridge, an intense debate was sparked about the controversial changes. According to the Times, the state recruited a "broader group of Michiganders...to redraft the standards, which will be presented to the State Board of Education on April 9." The 8 member board will then on whether or not to adopt it (the draft version can be found here).
As the Times points out, almost no historians, political or legal scholars of the US Constitution believe that a representative democracy and constitutional republic are mutually exclusive descriptors. Yes, the founders tended to avoid the word democracy because they had in mind direct democracy (like that which briefly existed in Athens). But as the article states:
A democracy is government by the people, who may rule either directly or indirectly, through elected representatives. A republic is a form of government in which the people’s elected representatives make decisions.
Some of the country’s political processes, like ballot referendums, are more democratic than others, like the Electoral College. Grappling with that complexity is key to understanding American government, according to social studies experts.
The US has become deeply polarized along party lines, and the attempt in 3 "Red states" to replace the term "deomocracy" with "republic" is partly reflective of the conservatives' ambitions to replace "Democrats" with "Republicans" in elected office. But it also coincides with the erosion of democratic norms and values both in the US and Europe, which has been documented and studied by political scientists in such books as How Democracies Die and The People vs. Democracy, among many others. Republicans, such as Reagan and Bush 1 and 2 used the rhetoric of democracy and freedom all the time. A meaner, and more unabashedly hierarchical right wing populist movement has displaced much of that rhetoric in favor of nativism with anti-democratic elements such as racism, Islamaphobia, homophobia and other forms of intolerance and discrimination which run counter to core democratic values. There is something Orwellian about removing a word from K-12 classrooms that has long been as American as Apple Pie.
Because there is no national curriculum in this area, we could end up with children learning different things about this country, thus augmenting the polarization and conflict already in play. Though decentralization of public education has the advantage of empowering those people (parents, municipal and local leaders) who know the needs of their communities, is there not also a need for certain overarching values and norms lest we lose whatever social solidarity we have left as Americans? Even if states can create their own standards, shouldn't this be something that requires extremely broad approval within the states? Right now, citizens in Michigan are locked in a tense struggle over the future of their education system. This is the third state in only a few years to try to eliminate the word "democracy' from the classroom-- a disturbing trend.
B&B orig: 4/7/19
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