CRIME & NO PUNISHMENT

A few weeks ago a great crime was committed in our American secondary schools. Millions of students took the required US Constitution Test, and an estimated 96% passed...!

The crime is surely not in the test, but in the easy way almost everyone passes it. I speak here as a retired teacher and co-compliciter. In retrospect, it makes you think of H.G. Wells when he warned: "Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe."

Here's the heart of the matter, Mr. Duncan. While it's appropriate that youngsters learn the principles of their Constitution, the test never really addresses the practice. New immigrants are required to pass an adult exam, but once we graduate our 18-year-olds, that's it. Slam, bam, end of civics education! Down-right crazy in a democracy which depends upon the wisdom of its citizenry.

Isn't it something like giving the keys of a BMW to a kid who never finished driver's ed? The answer that's offered is: (1) if they're old enough to die for their country, they're old enough to vote (2) besides, it's their inherent right under the Constitution. But while both answers carry weight, not enough when we consider something like the current Gitmo dispute.

The administration you work for offered a nuanced plan to close a camp that violates human rights and further inflames the recruitment of terrorists around the globe. Those who dissent -- some Democrats, virtually all Republicans, and the great volcano god Limbaugh -- surely have the right to dissent, but do they have the right to use their right so irresponsibly? Maybe if more of the students you and I helped graduate were on the top of their game, the irresponsible battle-cries would have failed in their tracks.

As with all irresponsible dissenters, they gotta have a gimmick. A hot bumper-sticker message. This one does: "Not in my neighborhood." I'm wondering right now how many of our former students -- a grand collage of young humanity -- can see through such a bogus case? Such utter nonsense? In other words, such a lie? The facts, as re-stated by your colleague Defense Secretary Gates, are that "our neighborhoods" already house terrorists and mass murderers in safe maximum-security prisons. (Along with, by the way, atomic waste deposits). For decades, and not one has ever escaped. Including those imprisoned within only a few hours drive of our own Chicago.

And so, Mr Secretary, if I had the chance to meet our former students today, I would pray to Thomas Jefferson that a show of hands would show they understand their Constitution and their country wisely enough to know demagogy when they smell it. And then choose to help get on with the truly legitimate crises on our national plate.

To my way of thinking, that would deserve an A. Don't you agree...?