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What was the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution?

What is the purpose of the 11th Amendment?

Don’t know?

Well, you may soon if a West Virginia senator gets his way.

As part of a new federal spending bill that passed through Congress last week, Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., has inserted a provision requiring all schools receiving federal aid, both public and private, to devote part of a day each year to teach students about the Constitution. All schools from elementary through college would be subject to the legislation.

The provision has generated controversy over what some see as intrusive involvement from the federal government in academic curricula, but Byrd believes schools today are not teaching students everything they need to know about the Constitution.

“While our educational system is good at ingraining feelings of respect and reverence for our Constitution, that same system is in need of great improvements in teaching what is actually in the Constitution and just why it is so important to our daily lives,” Byrd said in a statement released by his office. “That’s the focus of my legislation.”

Byrd, regarded by many of his colleagues as an expert on the Constitution, would have the schools teach about the document on Sept. 17 – the anniversary of the date on which the Constitution was signed in 1787.

Each school would be left to choose its preferred method of teaching, which could include traditional classroom instruction, guest speakers or some other method.

While most agree that teaching about the Constitution is important, some education organizations are worried that the federal government is overstepping its boundaries in the academic sphere.

“Institutions should be free to determine what they judge to be the best curriculum for their students,” said Jonathan Knight, a spokesman for the American Association of University Professors. “It would be more in keeping with the spirit of the Constitution to encourage, rather than require, that institutions teach about the Constitution.”

Knight called the legislation “worrisome” because he said the “seeming implication” is that schools which fail to adequately teach about the Constitution under the mandate of the provision, may then be in danger of losing some or all of their federal funding.

On a more immediate and practical level, the provision faces the problem that some schools, like UCLA, do not begin their academic year until after Sept. 17.

When presented with this information, representatives for Byrd, apparently unaware of some schools’ later starting dates, admitted it was something the senator has not yet addressed.

“Those questions have yet to be answered,” said Tom Gavin, a spokesman for Byrd. “The legislation language is very general.”

He said the provision was primarily concerned with encouraging a greater understanding of the Constitution.

The non-partisan watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense supports the idea of teaching about the Constitution, but Keith Ashdown, the vice president of policy for the group, said tacking on this type of legislation to a larger spending bill was not the appropriate way to achieve it.

Ashdown characterized Byrd’s provision as an “extraneous add-on that has made these types of spending bills laborious and cumbersome.”