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In Title U of the arts and cultural affairs law, Article 57-B, the New York legislature just passed a bill to create an “Armistad Commission.” This group, to be appointed by legislative leaders and the secretary of state, will operate under the premise that “it is the policy of the state of New York that the history of the African slave trade, slavery in America, the depth of their impact in our society, and the triumphs of African-Americans and their significant contributions to the development of this country is the proper concern of all people, particularly students enrolled in the schools of the state of New York.”
I can’t imagine that there’s any historian in the country who would disagree with this statement. Nor can I imagine that such themes are not extensively covered in every high school (and college) US history course in New York State. So, what will the commission—whose purview includes “teacher training activities,” and therefore involves both high school and college-level matters, do? Among other things, it will make “suggestions for revisions to the curricula and textbooks used to educate the students of New York state to reflect a more adequate inclusion of issues identified by the commission.”
Whoa. Isn’t that exactly what the Kansas board of Education is doing with intelligent design? Where is the AAUP, or the CUNY faculty union, denouncing the threat to academic freedom inherent in a politically-appointed board making “suggestions for revisions to the curricula and textbooks”? I’m not holding my breath waiting for either group to act.
This week's New Republic looks at the similarity between the radical left and radical right in another forum, with an article by Empire State professor Ian Reifowitz noting the similar rationales behind the Philadelphia plan to require a one-year high school course in African and African-American history and that of a rural PA school district to require that ninth grade biology students learn"intelligent design." (A few weeks ago, my colleague Tim Burke critiqued the plan as well.)
In Reifowitz's words,
Despite the apparent differences on the surface between the decisions taken by these two Pennsylvania school boards, they share a similar logic. The proponents of each justify its new requirement because it reflects (and by extension reinforces) the culture or religion of one particular group that happens to be the majority community in its school district. The decisions exemplify the parallels between the theocratic Christian right and radical multiculturalism, both of which reject the notion that Americans form a pluralistic yet unified nation. The Christian right is anti-pluralist; radical multiculturalism is hyper-pluralist.
Seems as if we have the same type of convergence in New York.
I forgot the coda to that comment: as far as I'm aware, the AAUP has never protested the micromanaging of teacher ed, regardless of the political motivations involved in the state legislature.
You could ask the same question of legislative mandates for general ed. At what point is a mandate acceptable general guidance and at what point is it micromanagement? I suspect most would say that the Texas Historians Full-Employment Act—uh, er, the history undergrad mandates—are fine, while the NY state mandate that K-12 students learn about the potato famine is micromanagement, but it's not always clear except in seeing how institutions respond.
A case in point is Florida's Gordon Rule, a mandate that undergraduates finish three courses where they have to write at least 6000 words in each of the courses in question. The idea was to require that students show they can write papers, but there's no mandate that the faculty provide feedback. The result is huge inconsistency in what teachers of those courses actually do with the writing requirement, as well as the rule in effect setting the <em>maximum</em> expectation for students, that they should only have to write much in three courses. So I receive the occasional complaint that I am assigning too much work, since it isn't a 'Gordon Rule course.'
Sherman Jay Dorn -
8/13/2005
KC writes, I haven't encountered any other proposal that involves a state government organizing a curricular review for a college program.
States routinely mandate curriculum matters in teacher ed. In Florida, it's gotten so ridiculous for both prerequisites and the teaching program that, if I recall correctly, someone entering college can't finish in four years with a math or science major and teaching credential unless she or he knows when signing up for classes the first semester that teaching in high school is the goal.
Robert KC Johnson -
8/12/2005
I'm not really sure how my post can be read as defending the teaching of intelligent design, but I apologize if I conveyed that impression.
Moreover, I noted is an above comment my opposition to "state legislatures are making ideologically inspired curricular decisions to problems that don't exist.
"In the KS case, it's to (essentially) force the teaching of creationalism as science, even though evolution was being taught perfectly well in KS."
Ralph E. Luker -
8/12/2005
Chris, Perhaps you'd like to identify your own creds for us.
chris l pettit -
8/12/2005
I often wondered how anyone can defend the teaching of ID with a straight face...then again, I often wonder how KC can defend most anything he says and why anyone actually thinks he has any academic credibility.
Thanks for the laugh (both Manan, who was intentional, and KC, who probably wasn't)...
CP
Ralph E. Luker -
8/12/2005
I'd have to agree with KC on this one. You'd almost have to be committed to perpetual victimology to ignore the massive impact of the study of African American history over the last two generations.
Robert KC Johnson -
8/12/2005
I suggested 1985 because a case could have been made that the field of African-American history was still somewhat new, that textbooks at some schools still might date from the 1960s, etc., and not reflect changes in the contemporary historiography.
We've seen an explosion of social history over the past three decades, however. I'm not aware of any US history textbook published in the last 15 years that doesn't give significant coverage to African-American issues. So the curricular/pedagogical need for such an initiative, which might have existed in 1985, certainly doesn't exist today.
Manan Ahmed -
8/11/2005
Let me just elevate the discourse here by referring all of you to this site.
Adam Kotsko -
8/11/2005
Part of the silence from the guardians of academic freedom is likely the fact that teacher education programs are a hybrid of a normal disciplinary degree and a professional degree, such that incursions into curricular decisions by the credentialing body do not raise as many eyebrows. Think of the example of an accounting program -- if the CPA exam significantly changed, that would cause curricular changes in those programs, and it would be a pain, but it wouldn't be an issue of academic freedom per se.
(Incidentally, I don't understand why 1985 would be considered a riper time for such a measure than now.)
Robert KC Johnson -
8/11/2005
I see two signs of trouble:
1.) The proposal combines a review of curricula and a call for changing "teacher-training programs," and thereby involves the state government in curricular decisions at the college level. That might be a good thing, it might not. (I think it isn't.) But the silence of the guardians of "academic freedom" like the AAUP and the PSC is notable. I haven't encountered any other proposal that involves a state government organizing a curricular review for a college program. That seems like a pretty standard definition of a threat to academic freedom.
Whatever the KS proposal does--and I think it's awful--it doesn't get into college education at all, other than ensuring that KS students who go to college will be unprepared for science.
2.) With regards to a HS history curriculum, I'd have no problem with Albany reviewing the curriculum--that's what the state Dept. of Education is supposed to do. When a US history curriculum is reviewed, however, it has to be reviewed as a whole. This proposal calls for reviewing one portion of the curriculum, through a commission created in such a way that it will be stacked. (The same would hold true if, say, the NYS legislature passed a bill creating a "Bill Gates Commission" and called for looking into the coverage of economic history in the US survey.)
In the end, there will be enormous pressure to add material--for political, rather than sound pedagogical reasons. And if material is to be added, something will have to be taken out: what? I agree in theory the commission could recommend changes, and those changes could not be adopted. But in the real world, the chances for that occurring are slim to non-existent: any system that rejected the proposed changes would be opening itself up to charges of racism.
Yes, state textbooks are outdated, but they're not that outdated: in NY, teachers teach to the Regents' Exam, in which the share given to African-American history reflects current historiographical debates.
This is the kind of proposal that might have been understandable 20 years ago. But not now.
Rebecca Anne Goetz -
8/11/2005
KC:
I'm really not sure I understand what the problem is here.
First, I'm willing to believe that New York's K-12 history and/or social studies curriculum probably does give short shrift to African-American history and the history of slavery more broadly. This isn't because the good people of New York don't want their children to learn this stuff, but it is more likely because there are so many topics to be covered. Teachers often find themselves with out-of-date textbooks, aging curricula, and a lack of resources to say, develop a teaching unit on the Middle Passage. Or on the debate between W.E.B. DuBois and Booker T. Washington. Or on the Civil Rights Movement. I wish I had some number on this, as Adam requested. But given the state of most public education systems in this country, it doesn't seem farfetched to suppose that NY has the same troubles as other places.
So, this law just forms a commission that will SUGGEST changes. This is pretty routine. Probably what will happen is some textbook publishers will make some changes in their textbooks to make them more likely to be adopted in New York. New York itself will develop some curricula/lesson plans that teachers can ELECT to use at various junctures. Maybe some school districts will send some teachers to conference that deal with African-American history and/or slavery, and they'll go home to their districts with some thoughts. And in a few years, who knows? Maybe a junior high school course in New York history will now have a curriculum that teachers and/or districts can ELECT to use that carefully examines NY's role in the slave trade in the eighteenth century (for example).
Where's the bad here? As you point out yourself, KC, most if not all historians would agree with the fundamental tenets of the Armistad Commission. What's wrong with helping teachers incorporate some of this into their classes? No one is MANDATING that something in particular be taught, only that ways be found to acknowledge the African-American past and the legacy of slavery.
There's a real difference between that and the ideological war now taking place in KS, in which the religious right wishes to redefine the entire scientific method. What NY seems to want to do is make sure its history/social studies classes have adequate resources to address a facet of history that no self-respecting historian would disagree with.
Again, not sure what the trouble is with that.
Ralph E. Luker -
8/11/2005
Adam, Thanks for the note on the "Remember Me" box. We think that it isn't working because work is still going on in the system.
Adam Kotsko -
8/11/2005
(By the way, the "remember me" checkbox isn't working.)
KC -- I guess this is what bothers me: you were critiquing a K-12 type of thing and claiming that the parallel was very strong, to the point where groups who protest the KS decision are hypocritical not to protest the New York decision -- when in point of fact, the Kansas decision is qualitatively more worthy of protest than the New York decision (which I'm not denying is worthy of criticism).
Additionally, states have always had the right to regulate requirements for teacher certification and therefore have always had indirect influence on college-level curricula. Are you suggesting that Kansas wouldn't eventually require its biology teachers to be competent in "Intelligent Design" theory?
And it seems to me that you're just assuming that black history is adequately covered in schools in New York state. If you have some actual data here, beyond being unable to imagine that someone might think more attention to black history is warranted, present it.
Robert KC Johnson -
8/11/2005
Here's what I see as the fundamental similarity: in both cases, state legislatures are making ideologically inspired curricular decisions to problems that don't exist.
In the KS case, it's to (essentially) force the teaching of creationalism as science, even though evolution was being taught perfectly well in KS. In the NY case, since there isn't any insufficient coverage to these themes in the current curricula, it's to (essentially) redefine the curricula to convey the "self-esteem" message of the sponsors.
In one way, I see the NY case as more dangerous than KS--by mentioning "teacher-training program," it suggests state involvement in the curricula of colleges. So why nothing from the AAUP or PSC?
I agree with Adam's statement in part and disagree with in part. At the K-12 level, it seems to me the greater threat is from the religious right, because of the focus on creationism. At the college level, however, there seems to be almost no noticeable impact of right-wing pressure, while the day-to-day threat of the cultural Left's dominance is enormous.
Ben W. Brumfield -
8/11/2005
Last month, Left2Right had an essay on the Philadelphia proposal by James Oakes. It's worth reading.
Robert KC Johnson -
8/11/2005
Precisely. And the NR piece quotes one of the authors of the Phila. proposal explicitly making the point that one of its purposes is to raise self-esteem. I'm all for raising people's self-esteem--but that's not the job of a History class.
Alan Allport -
8/11/2005
The problem with the Philadelphia proposal, as Tim points out, is that its purpose seems less directed towards broadening historical understanding than it does towards increasing 'self-esteem', whatever that means exactly, amongst African-American students. History, when properly conducted, is about complexity, ambivalence, often tragedy; it is not something that is necessarily going to make one feel good about oneself. There's a valid suspicion that this course will place more emphasis on happy-clappy 'consciousness-raising' than it will serious consideration of black history.
Adam Kotsko -
8/11/2005
Are you advocating that the government have no say in curricular decisions in public schools? That was certainly not the case before the decision that you're critiquing, and it wasn't the case before Kansas started using its authority over schools to start mandating intelligent design. State and federal government agencies make decisions, "politically-motivated" or not, about curicular changes, all the time -- they have the right to do this.
Second, do you seriously believe that a shift of emphasis toward more black history represents the same kind of attack on the discipline of history as does the introduction of "intelligent design" in regard to biology? I don't know what the history program was like in New York or Pennsylvania before these decisions and can't judge whether more highly emphasizing black history was warranted or not. But even if it is unwarranted, those students will still be taught about actual events that actually happened, together with historical interpretation of them, whereas in the case of intelligent design, they will be taught made-up theories that will be presented as the result of the scientific method.
The cases are qualitatively different -- if the comparison is made honestly, one will come to the conclusion that at the present historical moment, right-wing ambitions for reshaping our nation's educational system are much more dangerous than are left-wing ambitions. That's not to say that the left wing is above reproach by any means, or even that the decision to teach more black history is justified -- it's just to say that you are drastically minimizing the problem of "intelligent design" by acting as though both cases are "the same."
Louis Nelson Proyect -
8/11/2005
I think there's a difference between teaching creationism and teaching about the slave trade. The first subject is false while the second is true. Here are some other comparisons:
Do not teach: astrology
Do teach: the holocaust
Do not teach: healing power of crystals
Do teach: Amazon rainforest ecology
Do not teach: Sasquatch
Do teach: Origins of Vietnam war
