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7A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, APRIL 3, 2017 We the pupils: More states teach founding US documents By MATT O’BRIEN Associated Press NORTH SMITHFIELD, R.I. — Should U.S. high school stu- dents know at least as much about the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Federal- ist papers as immigrants passing an American citizenship test? In a growing number of school systems, having such a basic knowl- edge is now a graduation require- ment. But states are taking differ- ent approaches to combating what’s seen as a widespread lack of knowl- edge about how government works. Kentucky last week and Arkan- sas on March 16 became the latest of more than a dozen states since 2015 that have required the high school social studies curriculum to include material covered by the 100 ques- tions asked on the naturalization exam. Lawmakers in other states, including Minnesota, are hoping to foster even deeper understand- ing of the fundamentals of Amer- ican democracy by adding a full course to study its most important documents. “Rights might be inherent, but ideas need to be taught,” said Maida Buckley, a retired classroom teacher in Fairbanks, Alaska, who testi- fied last year to an Alaskan legis- lative task force on civics educa- tion. “When you have a system of government that’s based on ideas, espoused in the Declaration of Inde- pendence and carried out with a working document in the Constitu- tion, those ideas need to be taught.” It’s a bipartisan cause, and in many states such bills are jointly introduced by Republicans and Democrats. But proponents’ moti- vations vary from dismay about AP Photo/Steven Senne High school students Jackson Laferriere, left, and Noah Lemoine fill out work sheets as teacher Natalie O’Brien, top center, speaks with students during a civics class called “We the People,” at North Smith- field High School in North Smithfield, R.I. More states are requiring graduating high school students to know at least as much about the U.S. founding documents as immigrants passing a citizenship test. the lack of participation in local school boards and town halls to con- cerns about how Republican Presi- dent Donald Trump and his support- ers view the power of the executive branch. “We clearly have seen there is a serious civics deficiency in this country, all the way up to the top, the very top,” said Rhode Island Dem- ocratic state Rep. Gregg Amore, a longtime high school history teacher who is co-sponsoring legislation that contends the “survival of the repub- lic” depends on Americans under- standing its principles and history. A campaign by the Scottsdale, Arizona-based Joe Foss Institute has led many states to pass laws requir- ing students to know what’s on the citizenship test. “It’s not a panacea or silver bul- let, but it’s a step forward,” said the group’s Lucian Spataro, who said 17 states have adopted the model or something similar. “You have to learn the basics before you can have the higher-level discussions.” Other civics education boosters say such a mandate is too simplistic. “If you do something like that, people are going to start teaching to the test and teaching a game of Triv- ial Pursuit,” said Charles Quigley, executive director of the Calabasas, California-based Center for Civic Education. “Kids are already tested to death.” The Rhode Island bill, introduced by a Republican from North Smith- field, a conservative town where Trump is popular, is partly inspired by a ninth-grade class taught at North Smithfield High School. The honors class uses the “We the Peo- ple” curriculum developed by Quig- ley’s group. Students participate in a national competition in which they must orally defend their ideas. On a March afternoon, teenag- ers stood at their classroom’s lec- tern one by one, debating whether a California police officer can search a suspected gang member’s smart- phone without a warrant. As they argued, some cited lan- guage from the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment. Others looked to Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis’ 1928 dissenting opinion in a wiretapping case. Their teacher, Natalie O’Brien, gently prodded them to think crit- ically and tap into more than 200 years of American history and legal philosophy. She didn’t tell them that, in 2014, a unanimous Supreme Court ruled in the California case that police may not generally search the cellphones of people they arrest without first getting search warrants. “Someone’s going to channel James Madison, right?” she said. “What would Brandeis be saying about this particular decision? What would the founders be saying?” North Smithfield High student Megan Skinner said she didn’t pay much attention to politics before O’Brien’s class, but the 15-year-old now said she now uses the founding U.S. documents as a guide as fam- ily and friends debate the Trump presidency. “It gives us an entirely new per- spective on all the events that are going on,” Skinner said. “You see all these things in the news, and especially about the election, and all the things that are going on with the executive orders he passed, the travel bans. Before this class, we wouldn’t have understood these things.” CAN YOU PASS THE US CITIZENSHIP TEST? Associated Press In a growing number of states, high school graduates are being required to know at least as much about U.S. founding documents as immigrants passing the citizenship test. Can you ace it? An applicant must correctly answer six of 10 questions, selected from 100 possible ques- tions, to pass the civics portion. A sample test, with the answers at the bottom: QUESTIONS 1. What does the Constitution do? 2. The idea of self-government is in the first three words of the Constitution. What are these words? 3. What is an amendment? 4. What do we call the first 10 amendments to the Constitution? 5. How many amendments does the Constitu- tion have? 6. What are two rights in the Declaration of Independence? 7. Under our Constitution, some powers belong to the federal government. What is one power of the federal government? 8. The Federalist Papers supported the passage of the Constitution. Name one of the writers. 9. There are four amendments to the Constitu- tion about who can vote. Describe one of them. 10. What is one right or freedom from the First Amendment? ANSWERS 1. Sets up the government, defines the govern- ment and protects basic rights of Americans 2. We the People 3. A change or an addition to the Constitution 4. The Bill of Rights 5. 27 6. Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness 7. To print money, to declare war, to create an army or to make treaties 8. James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay (under the collective pseudonym Publius) 9. Citizens 18 and older can vote; you don’t have to pay to vote; any citizen can vote, a male citizen of any race can vote 10. Speech, religion, assembly, press, petition the government SOURCE: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Cormorants: Corps reported killing 2,982 adult birds in 2016 Continued from Page 1A birds and oiled eggs — a pro- cess that prevents the eggs from hatching — in 5,089 nests. In 2016, the Corps reported a total of 2,982 adult birds killed. Cormorant populations So far there haven’t been any changes in populations elsewhere that state biolo- gists can directly attribute to management activities on East Sand Island. Drawing a straight line from the Colum- bia River estuary to changing cormorant populations farther down the coast is difficult to do anyway. “If we do see increases at the Oregon Coast colonies, we would be curious to know how this might be related to activities on the Colum- bia River,” said state biolo- gist and avian predation coor- dinator James Lawonn. But, he added, “cormorant colo- nies naturally fluctuate quite a bit.” The Department of Fish and Wildlife already moni- tors double-crested cormo- rant populations on the coast extensively. In addition to reg- ular nonlethal hazing activi- ties, when some monitoring can occur, there are regu- lar aerial surveys and estuary surveys. On these excursions, biologists focus on a variety of bird species but also take note of the double-crested cormorants. The state has not increased any of its monitoring activi- ties in response to the Corps’ lethal management plan on East Sand Island. This is mostly because the Depart- ment of Fish and Wildlife’s own monitoring efforts along the coast and in the estuaries are already “pretty robust,” Lawonn said. “We feel that we’ve got our bases covered.” Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian Cormorants rest below the Astoria Bridge last year. Nonlethal hazing Oregon plans to begin its nonlethal hazing activ- ities in May, focusing on the Nehalem, Nestucca and Coquille river estuaries and Tillamook and Alsea bays before moving up to the Lower Columbia River area. The cormorants are native to Oregon and are particu- larly prevalent on the state’s estuaries from April through LISTINGS M ONDAY E VENING A (2) (-) (-) (6) (-) (8) (9) (10) (12) (13) (-) (20) (-) (29) (30) (31) (32) (34) (35) (36) (38) (39) (43) (44) (45) (46) (47) (48) (49) (50) (51) (52) (53) (54) (56) (57) (58) (61) (63) (64) (65) (162) L KATU KOMO KING KOIN KIRO KGW KRCW KOPB KPTV KPDX KCPQ TBS KZJO ESPN ESPN2 NICK DISN FAM FMC LIFE ROOT FS1 SPIKE COM HIST A&E TLC DISC NGEO TNT AMC USA FOOD HGTV FX CNN FNC CNBC BRAV TCM SYFY RFD (2) (4) (5) (-) (7) (-) (3) (10) (12) (-) (13) (20) (22) (29) (30) (31) (32) (34) (35) (36) (38) (39) (43) (44) (45) (46) (47) (48) (49) (50) (51) (52) (53) (54) (56) (57) (58) (61) (63) (64) (65) (162) 6 PM October, according to a news release from the Depart- ment of Fish and Wildlife — overlapping with when wild- spawned and hatchery salmon juveniles are migrating from their origin streams to the ocean. The hazing activities by the state are an effort to pro- tect, in particular, spring migrants that are considered threatened under the Endan- gered Species Act. Though some small pyrotechnics might be used, most often the state’s hazing techniques take the form of people driv- ing around in boats, chasing cormorants away from areas where vulnerable — and valu- able — juvenile salmon are concentrated. The Department of Fish and Wildlife has coordinated this cormorant hazing project for the last eight years, and such nonlethal hazing in one form or another has occurred at some Oregon estuaries since the late 1980s. Evening listings MONDAY A - Charter Astoria/ Seaside - L - Charter Long Beach 6:30 7 PM 7:30 8 PM 8:30 9 PM 9:30 10 PM 10:30 11 PM A PRIL 11:30 3 KATU News at 6 Jeopardy! Wheel of Fortune Dancing With the Stars (N) Quantico "MKTOPAZ" (N) KATU News at 11 (:35) Jimmy Kimmel KOMO 4 News Wheel of Fortune Jeopardy! 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