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PARTISAN REVIEW
demic standards. The movement advocating national standards and a sys–
tem of assessments for our elementary and secondary schoolchildren is one
of the most promising on our horizon. People who care about the
changing culture of the university should investigate ways to get involved
in helping the schools. They should encourage their state
to
develop
curriculum frameworks that would link up with national standards, and
they should encourage professional development opportunities for bring–
ing teaching up to those standards. Once standards in elementary and
secondary schools gain wide acceptance, professors will be held account–
able. Their students are future teachers who must have a firm mastery of
content. Theory and political approaches to history and literature shrink
in the face of the serious business of academic standards. Professors
will
politicize college classrooms at their own peril.
The National Council for Education Standards and Testing, a
bipartisan group co- chaired by the governors of Colorado and South
Carolina, have set in place task forces to develop and implement national
standards and a system of assessments in English, math, science, geography,
and history. This effort has the best potential for insuring that future
teachers are given opportunities to learn and that incumbent teachers are
encouraged to reinvigorate their teaching with a better understanding of
the subjects they teach.
William Phillips:
That's a wonderful statement. It is almost utopian.
How would you enforce it? Our problem is that these things don't seem
to be enforceable.
Celeste Colgan:
These standards, or what?
William Phillips:
For teachers to teach and not propagandize, for ex–
ample.
Celeste Colgan:
I think the dialogue needs to be shifted. We need to
redefine what good teaching is, instead of rejecting people's politics.
Ronald Radosh:
On the question of interpretation. I don't recall ex–
actly how you phrased it, but it isn't just a matter of leaving politics out.
Let's say there's an election campaign going on, you wouldn't want a
teacher in the humanities, in history, or in the social sciences to come
out and say, "I want you to support Clinton for this reason," or "I
want you to support Bush for that reason." That kind of politics has to
be left out of a class. But speaking for history, you can't really leave your
views out. Because when dealing with history, we're presenting an
interpretation. You have to let the students know that you're not
