Florida legislators look likely to pass a law that would require middle-schoolers to take and pass a civics test before moving on to high school. Expanding civics education has been on state lawmakers' minds since former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor gave a speech urging them to do so, according to the Miami Herald:
'I call this the anti-Jay Leno bill,' said state Senator Nancy Detert, the bill's sponsor, referring to the host's 'Jaywalking' segment. 'Because I'm not amused by the fact that nobody knows anything about their government -- although they all have an opinion.'
Someone should urge the state's attorney general, Bill McCollum, who spearheaded a likely doomed lawsuit against health-care reform, about how a bill becomes a law. It's nice to imagine that the health-care debate might have gone differently if more Americans had understood the mechanics of government -- normal procedures might not have been spun so easily as back-room machinations.
What I'm most surprised about is that the requirement didn't exist before. The rationale for a strong public education system has always been that it forms the foundation for a strong democracy. It seems like education about your government system should be part of that. Some, including a Miami-Dade County school administrator named John Doyle, decry the required test as going too far and say a class should be enough:
He said he and others worry that holding students back from high school is too punitive -- and that the heart of civics education might be cut out.
'It needs to become part of their soul, if you will, to be active participants in our democracy,' Doyle said. 'I'm not sure that the test is going to encourage that.'
While he's saying the way those students interact with the schools will inform their idea that citizenship as much as a class will, I wish it could be divorced from their idea that your citizenship comes from or through your heart and soul. The idea that your opinions about certain policies reside there, rather than your head, is probably what's getting us in trouble now.
-- Monica Potts
