Cairo Association of Teachers - Newsletter

CAT Tracks for August 29, 2005 MAKE THAT SEPTEMBER 16th

...since September 17th is on a Saturday this year!

Ready or Not, Constitution Day Is Near

The nation's charter gets official recognition this year, stirring more confusion than homage.

By Steven Bodzin and Mary Curtius, Times Staff Writers

WASHINGTON — For Louise Leigh, a retired medical technologist from El Monte, Sept. 16 will be a dream come true.

It will be the first federally recognized Constitution Day, a national celebration of the U.S. government's founding document. It is what she has sought since she founded a nonprofit organization, Constitution Day Inc., in 1997.

But as the big day approaches, the schoolteachers and federal bureaucrats who will be required to spread constitutional knowledge are confused about what to do, if they've heard of Constitution Day at all.

Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) wrote the new holiday into the budget for the Education Department in December. He routinely carries a pocket-sized copy of the Constitution, which he has been known to bring out during speeches on the Senate floor.

The law creating a federal Constitution Day requires all schools receiving federal funds, as well as all federal agencies, to provide materials about the Constitution on Sept. 17, commemorating the date in 1787 when the delegates to the Constitutional Convention signed the nation's charter. This year, because that date is a Saturday, events are planned for the day before.

One celebration will take place in Buena Park, at the Knott's Berry Farm replica of Independence Hall. The Constitution was drafted, debated and adopted at Independence Hall in Philadelphia.

Since 1997, Leigh, who is 91 and a longtime Republican Party activist, has organized Constitution Day events at Knott's Berry Farm. This year her program calls for a simultaneous recitation of the preamble to the Constitution at sites around the world, led by retired Army Gen. Tommy Franks.

Leigh began her activism as outreach director for the California Bicentennial Commission three decades ago after retiring as a medical technologist.

"I spoke on university campuses and schools and service clubs, and realized how little people knew about the Constitution," she said. "I never stopped trying to perpetuate the Constitution."

Because of that longtime interest, she has been ahead of the game in preparing for the new date on the federal calendar.

California state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell is still preparing information for school districts about how to incorporate a Constitution lesson into courses at all levels. Those recommendations will be sent out in the next two weeks, spokeswoman Hilary McLean said.

Private schools and colleges are scrambling to prepare course plans as well.

At the Los Angeles, South Gate and San Bernardino campuses of Career College of America, students will find posters plastered across campus depicting the signatures on the Constitution, said Joanne Brennan, financial aid director for the vocational school's South Gate campus. She said she had spent about four hours one day this week surfing the Web for information on what, exactly, was required of educational institutions.

"One website said the rules aren't really rules," she said. "This being the first year, nobody really knows what to do."

She ended up ordering 1,000 soft-cover copies of the Constitution to distribute.

The website was right, according to Samara Yudof, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Education.

"We're confident they will comply," she said. "We don't expect any enforcement issues."

The legislation does not give the Education Department any enforcement power, so the law's stern-sounding language is not really a requirement, according to Byrd's office.

Complying will be particularly difficult at the University of California, where only two of the 10 campuses will be in session. The rest are on the quarter system, and classes will not resume until later in the month.

Classes at UCLA, for example, do not begin until Sept. 29. But for Constitution Day, University spokesman Phil Hampton said, the school "will prominently post a link on several websites, including its main website."