To the Editor:
There is a crisis in education that equals the threat of terrorism. We've lost the second generation of young Americans who don't know a lot about our country, our economic system, our history or how our democracy works.
Instead of reinvesting in teaching young people about their nation's unique formation, our government is forcing educators to marginalize a subject once considered part of any school's core curriculum -- on the same level as English, math and science. To have a well-rounded education and to have students understand what it is to be a citizen, they need to know their place in history. They need to know their rights.
Social studies is slowly being pushed out of the curriculum because state tests don't include a section on social studies. With Adequate Yearly Progress testing hanging over a teacher's head, teachers are being forced to teach what's tested. Those test scores dictate everything from whether a student will advance to the next grade to whether a school earns reward money. State officials may say that social studies is part of the test, because many of the reading passages are pulled from material taught in social studies, but there is a difference in being able to read and comprehend material and in being able to understand what the passage means in relation to our country.
If the teaching of geography, history and other social studies have been omitted from virtually every concrete measurement of a student's performance, then the message is that these subjects are not important. If these subjects are not important, then how will students know when the very essence of this country is being threatened? Ignorance provides a foundation for the demise of this country as we know it. Therefore I say that this crisis is as important as the threat of terrorism.
