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September 13, 2007

September 17 - Signing of the Constitution, 220 years

To mark the anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution, Congress is requiring public schools across America to dedicate one day to teach students about the U.S. Constitution. If schools don’t, they can lose federal funding. Just one day to teach the Constitution? Imagine a school saying they are just going to teach multiplication one day out of the whole school year! Both subjects are important and both subjects require much more than one day to learn. The same is true for other core subjects.

From Jay Leno’s TV segment “Jay Walking” (where Americans routinely show their ignorance on elementary-level questions) to the much-publicized ramblings on the runway of the Miss Teen USA pageant, American students’ lack of knowledge about essential knowledge has been a source of great humor to the rest of us. Indeed, many adults are embarrassed as they lose on the new TV Game show “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?” Lot’s of fun to watch but it’s no joke when you realize that American education is failing in many respects.

No wonder more and more parents are choosing to send their children to charter schools or applying for vouchers. School choice gives parents more control over what and how their children learn. So they can spend more time involved in their children’s education and less time dealing with the red tape and bureaucracy of traditional public schools.

So, let’s celebrate the choice the framers of the Constitution made 220 years ago by celebrating and speaking out for school choice. And as many American school children simultaneously say the pledge of allegiance on September 17 during the “Pledge Across America," let’s  also pledge as a country to support school choice so parents can decide what and how their children learn best.

For more information on how your school can participate visit www.celebrationusa.org.

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