The Center for Civic Education (CCE) is a nonprofit organization funded in part by the federal government. The group published its National Standards for Civics and Government in 1994. The standards have not been updated since that time; according to a person I spoke with at CCE, a presidential administration that favors national standards would have to give its mandate to the organization to overhaul the existing standards.

These standards define what students should know and be able to do at the completion of grades 4, 8, and 12 (so CCE splits standards into three categories, designed for the grade levels of K-4, 5-8, and 9-12). At every grade level, the overriding themes of these standards are constitutional values, civil rights and liberties, and freedom of expression within American democracy.

On the K-4 level, the standards describe the various texts that set the stage for liberal ideology in the United States: the Declaration of Independence, the Preamble to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the Pledge of Allegiance, and so on. The three branches of government -executive, legislative, judicial- as well as the responsibilities of state and local goverments are explained. Finally, discussions begin on what it means to be a citizen within the United States (public representation, voting to elect leaders, etc). Communications/media are not specifically mentioned in any significant way.

In grades 5-8, students are to continue to learn about the meaning of civic life. The difference between a limited (constitutional - democratic; legal limits on political power) and an unlimited (totalitarian or authoritarian - power is within the hands of a small group, with no effective limits to power) government is explained, as are the purposes of a constitution. By the end of 8th grade, students are also expected to know about how media and communications interact with politics:

Grades 5-8, III. F. 3. Political communication. Students should be able to evaluate, take, and defend positions on the influence of the media on American political life.

To achieve this standard, students should be able to

• explain the importance of freedom of the press to informed participation in the political system […]
• evaluate the influence of television, radio, the press, newsletters, and emerging means of electronic communication on American politics
• explain how Congress, the president, the Supreme Court, and state and local public officials use the media to communicate with the citizenry
• explain how citizens can evaluate information and arguments received from various sources so that they can make reasonable choices on public issues and among candidates for political office
• evaluate opportunities the media provide for individuals to monitor actions of their government, e.g., televised broadcasts of proceedings of governmental agencies, such as Congress and the courts, press conferences held by public officials
• evaluate opportunities the media provide for individuals to communicate their concerns and positions on current issues, e.g., letters to the editor, talk shows, “op-ed pages,” public opinion polls

This is an excellent way to begin discussing the relationship between media and politics. It talks about the importance of a freedom of the press, and lays out how media coverage can affect politics and public participation.

If you look again, however, a few key issues are not mentioned. What does it mean to have press freedom, and how does that relate to media ownership? How does the government influence press freedom and the means to achieve freedom of public expression (i.e. telecommunications policies, laws)? Where do business and economics fit in with freedom of the press and political influence over freedom of expression? These are not current but timeless issues, just as much as any other topic discussed in the standards.

Moving onto grades 9-12, we run into a similar problem. Definitions of civic life and the roles of government continue, expanding on the topics from grades 5-8. The standards again talk about how the media affect politics and public opinion, but not how politics and policy can affect the media:

Grades 9-12, III. E. 3. Political communication: television, radio, the press, and political persuasion. Students should be able to evaluate, take, and defend positions on the influence of the media on American political life. To achieve this standard, students should be able to

• explain the meaning and importance of freedom of the press
• evaluate the role of television, radio, the press, newsletters, and emerging means of communication in American politics
• compare and contrast various forms of political persuasion and discuss the extent to which traditional forms have been replaced by electronic media […]
• explain how Congress, the president, and state and local public officials use the media to communicate with the citizenry
• evaluate historical and contemporary political communication using such criteria as logical validity, factual accuracy, emotional appeal, distorted evidence, appeals to bias or prejudice, e.g.,
  • speeches such as Lincoln’s “House Divided,” Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I a Woman?”, Chief Joseph’s “I Shall Fight No More Forever,” Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms,” Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream”
  • government wartime information programs, campaign advertisements
  • political cartoons

Once again, these are quite extensive learning standards. Refreshingly extensive, perhaps, for a single field. (Remember: they are voluntary, not mandatory - especially for social studies, which is not even tested on the national level.) They do not, however, require students to know some important issues relating to communications and media. While they point out the existence of persuasion in media programming, they don’t discuss how policymakers can influence media through ownership rules, for instance, and how the ‘business’ of telecommunications can impact news reporting and entertainment media.

When these standards were written, the political economy of communications was just beginning to blossom as an academic field and had not yet become a widely popular notion within the grassroots. This is reflected in the lack of participation of representatives from the communications field (both academic and grassroots) in the development of these learning standards.

Today, however, reports about media policy and developments in the telecom market are regularly making mainstream news - yet these topics are still missing from an otherwise quite comprehensive set of national learning standards in social studies. While I don’t doubt that it would be very difficult, now might be a good time for communications and education to start conversing.

As a not-so-side note, the Center for Civic Education has at least one office in every state in the U.S., and regularly interacts with state educational administrators to impact curriculum and instruction at the state level.

[Citation: Center for Civic Education, National Standards for Civics and Government (Calabasas, CA: Center for Civic Education, 1994).]