Senator Carl Levin

Senator Levin is a very popular man in Michigan. He's well respected by a vast majority of the people in the State. Last year Time magazine rated him as one of the ten best senators. As I wrote about the other day, I heard Senator Levin speak at my synagogue this past Friday night. Senator Levin is Jewish. Just to demonstrate his incredible popularity, last Sunday I met the publisher of the Detroit Chaldean newspaper. Remember that Detroit has one of the largest Chaldean communities in the world, outside of the Middle East. The publisher said to me, "We (the Chaldean people) don't like Carl Levin. We love Carl Levin."

On Friday night, Senator Levin spoke about the situation in Iraq. He argued that the United States Congress should set a date for withdrawal. He emphasized that the Administration had done this country enormous damage by condoning torture. Senator Levin is a dynamic speaker who clearly has insight into the issues. (It doesn't matter whether or not I agree with him.) After the Senator finished his talk he took questions. I told him that I thought that his speech dealt with very important issues, the kinds of issues that students in U.S. high schools must be thinking about. I explained that the appropriate class to discuss these issues in is social studies. But, social studies is the only major subject that need not be tested, according to No Child Left Behind. I asked the Senator if he and his colleagues would consider including social studies as a mandated subject area in the revision of No Child. Senator Levin said that he and his colleagues would look at the legislation.

The title of Senator Levin's talk was "Defending Democracy at Home and Abroad." I truly believe that discussion of fundamental issues of diplomacy is crucial to U.S. security. The skills that are taught in social studies are crucial to U.S. security. I'd argue that rather than being considered the least important subject area, social studies should be considered one of the most important. I'm hoping that Congress mandates testing for social studies in the revision.

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