We're not free to ignore the Constitution; schools must teach document Sept. 17

ASSOCIATED PRESS ^ | Wednesday, May 25, 2005 | BEN FELLER, ASSOCIATED PRESS

[Liz]

Schools that get federal funds must teach about document on Sept. 17

WASHINGTON -- The Constitution long has ensured that Congress can't tell schools what to teach. But that's no longer the case for at least one topic -- the Constitution itself.

The Education Department outlined yesterday how it plans to enforce a little-known provision that Congress passed in 2004: Every school and college that receives federal money must teach about the Constitution on Sept. 17, the day the document was adopted in 1787.

Schools can determine what kind of educational program they want, but they must hold one every year on the now-named "Constitution Day and Citizenship Day." And if Sept. 17 falls on a weekend or holiday, schools must schedule a program immediately before or after that date.

Historically, the federal government has avoided dictating what or when anything must be taught because those powers rest with the states under the 10th Amendment. The Education Department's Web site even underlines that point, saying matters such as the development of curricula and the setting of course requirements fall outside federal authority.

But Congress stepped in when it came to the nation's foundational document, thanks to Sen. Robert Byrd, the West Virginia Democrat who keeps a copy of the Constitution in his pocket. Byrd inserted the Constitution lesson mandate into a massive spending bill in 2004, frustrated by what he called a huge ignorance on the part of many Americans about history.

It so happened that the Education Department's new guidelines emerged just as Byrd and the Senate, engaged in a fight over judicial filibusters, debated the Constitution's checks and balances.

Neither the department nor Congress has required a specific curriculum or a particular interpretation of the Constitution, Byrd said in an interview Monday.

[A Balrog of Morgoth]

frustrated by what he called a huge ignorance on the part of many Americans about history.

Imperial Cyclops, errrr, doctor, heal thyself. This idiot carries around a copy of the Constitution, and gratuitously inserts the occasional quote from a Roman notable into a floor speech, so he thinks that makes him Cicero. All the while, he builds monuments to himself back home in WVA like he's an Appalachian Nero.

[E Rocc]

But Congress stepped in when it came to the nation's foundational document, thanks to Sen. Robert Byrd, the West Virginia Democrat who keeps a copy of the Constitution in his pocket.

Too bad he doesn't keep its contents between his ears.

-Eric

[Smartaleck]

Breaking "200 years of tradition"? LOL

[LizardQueen]

Hopefully they'll have tutorials in Congress and in all other federal offices that day, too. They need it more than anyone.

LQ

[mewzilla]

...Sen. Robert Byrd, the West Virginia Democrat who keeps a copy of the Constitution in his pocket.

To use for toilet paper...

[StonyBurk]

My suggestion would anger the godless Demcrats and squishy
Republicrats -for I would insist the minds full of mush be
required to study Joseph Story's "A Familliar Exposition of the Constitution of the United States"from the 1859 original. without leaving out section 444 on the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Another excellent text would be as ancillary would be WmFederer's America's God and Country Encyclopedia of quotations--pages
135 (Continental Congress[for background]--180(which ends the section on the Constitution of the United States)Thus children would have the fundamentals most often ignored by our little red schoolhouses post 1960.

[Tax-chick]

Just damn :-).

[ctlpdad]

Durn, you beat me. I wanted to ping cd.

[Tax-chick]

Looks like he's sleeping in, anyway ... or working :-).

[ctlpdad]

Maybe his boss just got back from Singapore again and is cranky.

I remember he posted something like the following a long time ago - "MBIRFSTAIRNTGBTW = My boss is returning from Singapore tomorrow and I really need to get back to work."

LOL!

[Constitution Day]

Working*

*(actually, going through e-mails, drinking coffee and skimming through FR)

[traviskicks]

If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision of the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress. Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America.
- James Madison

This power the federal governmnet has over education is what madison warned about and must be eliminated. Charter Schools are the answer:
http://www.neoperspectives.com/charterschoolsexplained.htm

[traviskicks]

At every hour of every day, I can tell you on which page of which book each school child in Italy is studying.
- Benito Mussolini

Looks like on Sept 17th our Federal government could say the same thing as Benito Mussolini....

[nonliberal]

This kind of bothers me. Either we are FOR federal interference in education or we are AGAINST it.

With all the leftist drivel coming out of our government schools I can just see liberal teachers saying that what a bunch of dead, white guys wrote is irrelevant in modern times because no blacks, hispanics, homosexuals or pederasts were at the Constitutional Convention.