With enormous foresight, the founding fathers designed the amendment process to keep the Constitution relevant to a changing society while ensuring that the federal government could not change the country’s blueprint without the broad support of the states. This program is an indispensable tool for helping students to understand this vital process and to see its importance in their own lives. Correlated with national standards, it defines what an amendment is, explains why amendments have been needed down through the centuries, and describes the process for proposing and ratifying an amendment. Amendments used as illustrations of the process of changing the Constitution have been carefully selected for their interest value to today’s students. They include the Bill of Rights; the 15th Amendment, which guarantees voting rights for people of all races; the 19th (women’s suffrage) Amendment; the 18th and 21st (prohibition) Amendments; the 25th Amendment, which clarifies who leads the country if the president dies or resigns; the 26th Amendment, which lowered the voting age to 18; and the Equal Rights Amendment, which expired without ratification. The 27th (Congressional pay raise) Amendment, which was adopted more than 200 years after it was proposed, is also spotlighted. Includes a teacher’s guide. (18 min) ©2002 |