Teaching the Constitution
by TChris
As a general rule, the federal government shouldn’t be in the business of micro-managing a school’s curriculum, even if the school receives federal funding. Still, it’s easy to understand Senator Byrd’s frustration that schools have done a poor job of teaching the history and meaning of the United States Constitution.
In December he inserted into a giant spending bill a passage requiring every American school receiving federal money to teach about the Constitution on Sept. 17, the date it was signed in 1787.
Constitutional history is an unlikely subject at the massage and cosmetology schools that are subject to the law, and there are reasons to fear congressional interference with local control of schools. Do we want the federal government telling schools that they should teach intelligent design alongside, or instead of, evolution?
Byrd is nonetheless right to believe that people need to know more about the Constitution.
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