Doyle signs bill requiring teaching of labor

[undeterred]

MADISON, Wis. - Wisconsin schools will be required to teach the history of organized labor under a bill signed by Gov. Jim Doyle.

The bill Doyle signed Thursday also requires Wisconsin schools to teach the history or collective bargaining.

The proposal has been around for years but never passed. This year it cleared the Democratic controlled Legislature despite opposition from school boards and administrators who said they didn't want the curriculum micromanaged.

Labor unions supported the bill. Doyle said in a statement that he was happy to sign the bill so students would understand the importance of the labor movement in creating basic workplace rights.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-wi-teachinglabor,0,3594315.story

:applause:

[dembotoz]

1. in republican areas will the unit be called "the beginning of the other dark ages"

do they actually have to teach it or do they just have to have a unit prepared.
I remember in my history classes when i was growing up, even though the history books covered up to
the fairly recent past, I don't remember ever getting past 1900.
While I admit that the span of time between 1900 and current times was much shorter then, the fact remains that those units never made it to the class room.

I wonder if these will.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

2. World War II was referred to as "Current Affairs" back then, eh?

:rofl:

But you're right, I don't think our U.S. history class ever got much past the League of Nations.

[midnight]

3. The Gov. is laying the ground work to strengthen Wisconsin....

[CatholicEdHead]

4. I am glad to hear this

In many areas of the country, organized labor has been unfairly demonized.

[Viking12]

5. As much as I think students should be aware of this history...

I am troubled by the Legislature and Governor dictating curriculum.

[mojowork_n]

6. I had no idea what to make of it, either.

But I typed "state + legislature + control + school + curriculum" and the top three results were from 1968, 1978, and 1975. The fourth result -- from Google Books, 2004 -- included this result:

Although some state constitutions contain brief references to subjects that must be taught, the primary legal authority for specifying the curriculum of the public schools rests with the state legislatures. (In a few states, by contitutional provision, this power is shared between the state legislature and the state board of education.) The state legislature may, if it wishes, prescribe the basic course of study down to the last detail, select all books and materials, determine graduation requirements, prescribe standardized testing requirements, and even establish the methods of instruction. In practice no legislature has gone this far. All of them, to varying degrees, voluntarily share control of the curriculum with their state boards of education and, most importantly, with local school districts. Within the limits set by the legislature, many of the details of a school's curriculum are set by the local school board...

http://books.google.com/books?id=RVxDY4k4rvUC&pg=PA16&lpg=PA16&dq=state+legislature+control+school+curriculum&source=bl&ots=NA-JuySUNQ&sig=qTuJpO67NXaiIvKU1k0xlcP9kjs&hl=en&ei=BVYoS9OfEYGslAeQyNyoDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CB8Q6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=state%20legislature%20control%20school%20curriculum&f=false

So maybe there's nothing too out of line, or unusual, going on.

....In theory, anyway.

This article, written by the Green Party candidate (Todd Alan Price) in last spring's state school board superintendent race, puts the whole school control push-and-shove (who's supposed to run things, the legislature, the governor, the mayor -- or school boards?) into historical context:

http://www.counterpunch.org/price12042009.html

So the short answer is, maybe, that the line in the sand about who's supposed to be in charge of curricula has never been clearly defined? Or maybe more accurately, no one's felt a need, until now, to try to impose too much top-down, regulated control of the system. But now that education budgets have grown so large.... and there's so much money up for grabs (a budget "feeding frenzy" Price calls it), all bets are off. So in this case, the imposition of a state curriculum requirement to teach labor history, needs to be seen in the larger context of who's going to be in charge of spending all those dollars earmarked for the education budget. Making "the teaching of labor history" a sort of carrot to be dangled in front of progressive voters, so we'll all go along with the WMC, and Greater Milwaukee Committee, the editorial board of The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and all the other un-progressive forces behind the various school take-over proposals.

That seems pretty cynical, but having been witness to the tragic waste of time and energy (and opportunity) that's characterized the national health care reform debate, I wouldn't put it past our own "Blue Dawg Dem," Doyle, to have some sort of horribly compromised, larger agenda.