Andrea Gabor, the Bloomberg Professor of Business Journalism at Baruch College of the City University of New York, writes here about the importance of civics education, especially in a time when democracy is under attack by a defeated president and the leadership of the Republican Party.
Put Civics Back in the Classroom, Right Now
Has there ever been a better time to resume lapsed efforts to teach young Americans the structure and purpose of U.S. democracy?
By Andrea Gabor
The presidential election seemed to mark a revival in American civic engagement. A record two-thirds of the electorate voted. Candidates raised at least $3 billion in small-dollar donations, and historic get-out-the-vote efforts had an impact in Nevada, Georgia and elsewhere.
Yet large numbers of Americans appear to believe President Donald Trump’s baseless charges of election fraud. Civic life and discourse have been eroded by the normalization of lying by elected leaders, the dissemination of disinformation via social media and the attempted weaponization of the courts to undermine confidence in voting.
Has there ever been a better time for a revival of civics education? Not your father’s bland civics, with its how-a-bill-becomes-law tedium, but a vigorous set of lessons about American society and government that encourages fact-based exchanges of views and civil debate about controversial topics without taking sides in contemporary disputes about such issues as abortion or immigration policy.
Civics should begin with a common narrative that Americans can agree on, beginning with what the Declaration of Independence and Constitution say about the role and structure of U.S. government. It should explore the definition of citizenship and how it has evolved over the course of 250 years via such documents as the Emancipation Proclamation, the Gettysburg Address, the Seneca Falls Declaration on women’s rights, and the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. It should address the role of the electoral college, how it works, and how votes are counted. And it should examine the prerogatives of state and local governments and their relationship to the federal government.
A foundational civics course must include uncomfortable truths. That would mean delving into the three-fifths compromise of the constitutional convention, which made slaves count toward the congressional representation of slave states without granting them any political rights, along with the Indian Removal Act of 1830 and the Supreme Court’s sanction of Japanese internment during World War II and its 2018 decisionto overturn that precedent. But divisive and complex debatesabout the degree to which slavery shaped American society should be left to more advanced classes.
Civics should also make room for local variations in content and execution. For example, the terms on which Southern states were readmitted to the union following the Civil War might receive more emphasis in the South, and the role of the 1787 Northwest Ordinances in expanding statehood could be stressed in the West.
The refreshing of civics curricula in Illinois and Florida provide a roadmap for how states should approach the topic today. Illinois’s civics mandate, especially a requirement that classes discuss “current and controversial issues,” is especially important. The law passed overwhelmingly in 2015 with bipartisan support — Illinois was among 11 states that previously had no civics mandate — and was signed by former Governor Bruce Rauner, a Republican. (While Illinois had long required high schools to teach two years of social studies, including one year of American history, the law now requires that at least one semester be devoted to civics.)
Facilitating constructive discussions of controversial topics requires special teacher training. Illinois offered all civics teachers professional development courses over a three-year period, and created a mentoring program for civics teachers, especially in schools with no previous civics course — as many as 13 percent of the total. The problem is that the state didn’t set aside money for the training, relying instead on philanthropies; a subject as important as civics should have a dedicated funding stream for educators and schools.Nor should the introduction of civics concepts wait until high school. Last year, Illinois added middle school to the grades that must provide civics instruction. Similarly, Florida’s decade-old civics law makes passing a middle-school civics course a requirement for high
school matriculation.
A well designed middle-school civics test could support fact-based debate and is arguably less onerous than a high-school graduation requirement; students who fail the class (in Florida the test accounts for just 30 percent of the middle-school civics grade) could retake the test and go on to high school. When the coronavirus pandemic recedes, states should consider eliminating all middle-school testing in lieu of a single meaty civics test that might include geography and some economics.
When it comes to civics, states have a lot of ground to make up. For decades, government policies, including state testing mandates and federal initiatives like President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind program and President Barack Obama’s support for Common Core, have focused on college and workplace readiness. Civics instruction got short shrift and was often abandoned.
As attacks on democratic institutions picked up steam during the Trump presidency, civics remained an afterthought. As of 2018, only eight states required students to take a yearlong civics and government class. The National Assessment of Educational Progress, which is considered the nation’s report card, dropped its 4th- and 12th-grade civics and American history exam in 2014.
Few recent state civics efforts succeeded.
Now, as a few states begin to pursue a civics revival, one concern is political interference from the left and right. California Governor Gavin Newsom just vetoed an ethnic studies law that threatened to erode time and effort spent on other subjects, including civics. Last year, Florida’s legislature passed a bill requiring the state to review civics materials, a concern at a time when Republican lawmakers and Governor Ron DeSantis have promoted Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud.
But civics instruction needn’t take sides to promote democratic involvement. Last year, Massachusetts became the first state to require schools to coordinate nonpartisan student-led civics projects. The redesigned Advanced Placement U.S. government and politics course taken by many college-bound students also requires students to work on a civics project, either partisan or not.
States should borrow good ideas from each other, including Florida’s emphasis on middle-school civics and Illinois’s focus on constructive debate. A shared narrative will be stronger if buttressed by productive argument and brought to life by civic action.
Andrea Gabor
Bloomberg Chair of Business Journalism
Baruch College/CUNY
After the Education Wars (The New Press, June 2018)
www.andreagabor.com
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Emphatically agree. Civics education is essential. In some places, alas, it will become Trumpy nationalist indoctrination.
BTW, for many, many decades, most states have required one semester of civics education in 6-12. As of 2018, 42 states and Washington, DC, required at least one semester of civics education, in addition to the civics that kids get in their American history classes. But the emphasis on standardized test accountability in English and math has given the entire social studies curriculum (and other curricular areas) short shrift.
All kids who are citizens will be able, as adults, to vote. Very few will use Algebra II and Trigonometry in their everyday lives.
Here’s a great list of resources: https://teachinghistory.org/teaching-materials/ask-a-master-teacher/25062
The textbook Magruder’s American Government has had the bulk of the high-school government/civics textbook market for MANY decades, through many editions. It still does. Last I looked at it–some ten years ago–it was quite good. Haven’t looked into it lately.
There’s civics already in social studies and US History courses. 😐
When I went to school, ‘Civics’ was about how the mechanics of our government worked. As a final project, I had to write a bill (either State or Federal), defend it’s importance, then explain how I would get it to pass.
Now that I’m retired, I found myself doing just that as I lobbied (for free, of course) in the State Legislature for forestry regulation. I don’t think I would have learned how to do that in a US History course.
Nothing wrong with US History, of course, however that topic is so huge that it cannot afford the time to effectively focus in on the practical mechanics of our current governmental system.
Daedalus The interface between history and civics or “government,” is obvious, however; and if taught rightly, can provide the source of concrete student work. CBK
I learned how bills were written and passed in social studies (elementary school) and US History (secondary school). 🙂🔔
Well, I learned math in elementary school, however the level of sophistication didn’t quite reach that required in graduate school. In fact, as an undergraduate, the course titled ‘basic mathematics’ was a ‘flunk out’ course for math majors.
As I said, American History is a huge topic, and trying to focus on the mechanics of our government for an entire semester just can’t be done. That requires a separate course.
Watching ‘I’m just a Bill’ doesn’t quite give that level of understanding someone needs to actually be effective at influencing our political system (more difficult every day thanks to the equation of money with speech).
My social studies and US History courses were for both an entire year, much longer than the college courses and the cute cartoon you mentioned. 😁
Here is an example of bad actors in a democracy having their cake and eating it too:
” . . . the three-fifths compromise of the constitutional convention, which made slaves count toward the congressional representation of slave states without granting them any political rights.” CBK
What happened this year with the awakening of indigenous people in this country is an example of what civic engagement can do. Trump’s racist policies were an awakening for native people, particularly in Arizona with the Navajo and The Tohono O’odham Nations that helped deliver the state for Biden. For the first time native people will have six representatives in Congress. BTW The Tohono people hold land in both Arizona and Mexico. Trump is building a border wall on their land despite their protests and lawsuits.https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/10/07/park-o07.html
Um, indigenous peoples hardly awakened “this year”. Maybe you’ve heard of Standing Rock, the pipeline protest that Obama crushed? And that was hardly the first. Native peoples have been fighting the good fight since 1492.
Now they are trying to change the system from within, and I hope they do.
They were doubtless fighting against European intruders much earlier, when Leif Ericson arrived in 999.
Leif left
But Chris crossed
“Leif us alone”
Leif left
But Chris crossed
Land theft
Has long cost
A deeper lesson for civics in a democracy concerns the tension between the individual and the community, and our responsibility to both . . . both are needed for democracy to work, of course.
However, in our present discourse, such as it is, we can see derailments of individualism emerge which already stamp-out all-things-community . . . where selfishness becomes not just A concern, but our only concern.
When that happens, we become closed up in ourselves. In that state, we cannot be drawn out of ourselves by either (1) others’ discourse or (2) truth itself, which MAY reside in the community of civil discourse for us to find for ourselves . . . should we put our selfishness aside and decide to be reflective about it. The selfish state of internal affairs, however, is a prescription for a closure of mind that is pretty-much all consuming and a killer of democracy itself as fundamentally a civic affair.
When there is no truth that can exist outside of ourselves, or that can come through others then, on principle, we cannot even consider the idea of self-questioning; we can find no reason or way to develop ourselves through it, even along normative patterns; and we end up thinking that whatever we feel or presently think is TRUE . . . only because we feel it or think it. . . . And so there go the very foundations of anything closely resembling intelligent, reasonable, and responsible thought, and so there goes civil discourse.
Further, the whole idea of freedom of speech rests on the prior notion that truth comes through civil discourse and, when all can speak, truths have a better chance of coming into the light. Of course, bad actors can violate anything they please, and reduce everything to the only truth they know which is somewhere in the range of the lowest common denominator.
Concretely, whenever we hear what-about-ism, or a “me vs you” argument, as we hear too many times in our discourse, we know the quest for truth and the fairness that is intimate with it, has gone missing. CBK
Yes.
What we need more than civics is media studies, starting with the fact that nearly all media outlets are owned by the same six mega-corporations.
Certainly the public needs to have a better understanding about Fox’ propaganda for the GOP and, about outlets like the Soviet- run, state RT that featured Scott Atlas.
Speaking of RT, Daily Beast reported yesterday about a RT program segment targeting Obama, “Overt racism in Russia state media is far from uncommon…”
Fox is more into programming with thinly veiled racism.
These days, civics education should encompass media studies, propaganda studies, how to spot manipulation and lies.
My sixth grade Social studies class covered propaganda, which is not a recent phenomenon, at any rate.
Not sure if they still teach about it.
Don’t pile us up with more without relief from some. Students already have schedule problems.
Gabor is a highly respected academic, unfortunately she does face teenagers only a daily basis. New York State has had a required Civics course, “Participation in Government” for many decades, Traditional, sitting in a classroom, courses, are mechanical and I doubt impact behaviors. Action-research based courses, for example, “Generation Citizen” courses are far more impactful, “projects” rather than curriculum…
The fifteen year old mind needs engagement, not studying a textbook.
Embed “civics” into a real project.
I can only speak for my kids, but they hate “projects” with a passion. Even more so for “group projects.” They’d take textbook learning with a good teacher any day.
Liking ‘group projects’ isn’t the point of assigning them. The point is teaching a teenager how to effectively work with others to achieve a common goal. Come to think of it, that’s kinda like teaching democracy. It’s ‘social studies’ in action.
Your kids would have hated my physics classes. We all worked in ‘lab groups’ and sometimes ‘study groups’. Funny thing is, though, by the time I retired at least 80% of the kids graduating from the school had been in one of my physics classes (an elective often avoided by most).
One of the reasons they don’t like them is they feel they don’t learn much subject-matter.
You can also learn how to effectively work with others to achieve a common goal by playing team sports.
I certainly agree with the ‘team sports’ comment. One can also learn to work as a ‘team’ in an individual sport, like tennis. I always felt that sports were an important learning experience, and coached swimming, tennis, and baseball. BTW, coaches that emphasize the ‘team’ concept, even in individual sports like swimming and tennis, produce far more wins for the ‘team’ and, thus, far more satisfaction for those who are on the team, no matter their level of competence. I have always felt that the typical academic teacher had no idea how important sports were to education.
However, most students aren’t on a sports team. Instead, they sit in the stands and cheer, which doesn’t give them a chance to learn the same lesson.
If the students don’t learn much from ‘subject matter’, perhaps the subject matter is at fault, not the idea of working in groups. Most of my physics students loved ‘lab day’.
(one caveat…. I did try early in my career ‘test partners’, encouraging students to ‘buddy up’ and study together. The test score the student got was the average of the partnership. Partners were assigned on a random basis, so a really good student would still always get a top grade, and a poor student would always be lower. I hoped that the interaction would do the same thing as lab groups and help students teach each other. HOWEVER, resistance came from a surprising direction. Whereas the good students bought into the scheme, the poor students felt guilty for pulling down their partner’s grade. That was certainly not my goal, so I cancelled that idea after one semester.)
Thanks for the thoughtful reply, Daedalus.
Yes, true, you can only speak for your kids. More’s the pity. And writing as a former civic educator and coach, your example of team sports replacing group learning is as off at it gets.
Most obviously, not all students engage in team sports. Teams are self-selected samples of the school population. For those who do participate, the goals are fairly self-evident and the coaches embody somewhat authoritarian, hopefully benevolent, roles. Ideally, a coach teaches players how to recognize and solve problems they confront on their own and within a group. More talented players dominate less talented ones. But beyond certain aspects of sportsmanship, the analogy with citizenship cannot be taken seriously. Moreover, it doesn’t take into account individual sports or team sports like football, basketball, and volleyball, where the coach is integrally involved in the game time decision-making, as opposed to soccer or field hockey.
Now to the crux of the false analogy: every student must take civics. Every student–you know like real life–is forced to engage in the exchange of ideas in order to arrive at a policy path forward. This includes deciding issues, what to do, and dealing with everyone, not a select few. One can learn the rules in a textbook with the guidance of a teacher, but one can’t learn how to to engage with the frustration of dealing with others…kind of like what we do here.
Daedalus,
One of my mathematics colleagues routinely assigns students to partner up, but always assigns an international student with a domestic student. The international students are overwhelmingly stronger in mathematics (the class she teaches is the Stem calculus class), but the domestic students help the international students with cultural issues in the US. She finds it helpful, and students do tend to do better in her sections than in others.
Excellent plan.
Diane and Peter Goodman I wrote a longer post, with a cross-posting from the National Literacy Association, that went into moderation. Just FYI. CBK
Did you mean to write “does not face teenagers on a daily basis?”
You are spot on, Peter. Civic education (when in the world did this become civics education) is more suited and group learning through projects than any other subject of which I am aware. After all, the whole purpose of civic engagement is to work in collectively with other individuals and in diverse settings to make decisions about public life and individual actions. Done properly, there is no way it can be done with just a textbook (yech) and a teacher.
When I was working for a national, federally funded civic education program in the 90s, we conducted two programs, one for high school students, one for middle. In the high school program, entire classes learned about the Constitution through a combination of classroom instruction and groups learning about specific topics that they had to work together to explain in a congressional hearing format. They competed with other classes, schools, up to the national level, where they had to answer questions from three judge panels. In the middle school program, they identified community issues that they felt needed to be addressed, put together portfolios and had them rated by elected officials up, ultimately being judged by elected state legislative members. Unfortunately, the leadership of the program was corrupt–when I realized it, it left–and it took a few years and lots of federal spending before Congress figured it out and cut the funding. It was too bad, because it was an exceptional program. Gifted students couldn’t dominate, weaker students couldn’t hide, they felt a bond with each other because their team’s performance depended on each other. You know, like actual citizenship and governing.
Years later, while speaking to a colleague in a completely different field, we realized that she was a member of one of those classes that competed in DC. Even twenty years later, she remembered it as her most memorable high school academic experience.
Honestly the way toxic capitalism, coupled with anti-science rhetoric and Americans’ penchants for never questioning religious doctrine, permeates our culture…we are anti-intellectual at this point. The average American doesn’t seem to question much or want to. Half voted for 45 again…
I just am giving up on the idea that many Americans want critical thought taught. I think that it’s become the American way to sit in a lounge chair, digesting any junk food that media provides along with any junk food that Monsanto provides, and just playing video games or making Tic Tocs. I don’t recognize the culture that I grew up in anymore.
Agree.
The unwillingness to acknowledge the politicking of the major religions in service to the GOP dooms the nation. Tribalism is fierce but, it must be confronted. Twenty years ago, a study found that the religious right voting bloc could affect the outcome of the presidential race in 12 of 20 toss-up states.
(Humor alert!) “we are anti-intellectual at this point”? Have you met the American people? (insert smiley face here)
The Last Thanksgiving
The jig is up
The turkey’s done
It’s time for sup
The final one
And PS it’s spelled TikTok (and that I know that does not say much for myself and is actually a bit frightening)
When man learned to talk, it spelled the beginning.
When man learned to TikTok, it spelled The End.
Diane and Peter Goodman This falls under “funny you should mention it.” And yes, there are still people in this country who cannot read or cannot read well, and who think they can. I am cross posting below a note from Tom Sticht sent to the Google Groups “AAACE-NLA”/National Literacy Association. I wrote them to to suggest that, because of our current political situation, a new or rejuvenated combination of civics with Adult Basic Education might be in order. FWIW, 12/1/2020
“The Persisting Problems of Recruitment & Persistence in ABE/ESL Programs/Tom Sticht, International Consultant in Adult Education (Ret.)
“’It is a frequently noted fact that the major problem in adult basic education is to get people into the program and keep them there (Sticht, 1975, p. 168).’ I wrote this in 1975, a decade after the start-up of Federal adult basic education (ABE) programs as part of the War on Poverty in 1965, a year before the passage of the Adult Education Act of 1966.
“Nearly a quarter century later, Sticht, McDonald, & Erickson (1998) conducted research in a large community college district and found major problems of getting adults into ABE and English as a Second Language (ABE/ESL) programs (a recruitment problem) and keeping them attending long enough to complete the program (a persistence problem).
“Now, close to another quarter century later, ProLiteracy has published two new Research Briefs concerned once again with the problems of recruitment (Clymer & Frey, 2020) and persistence (Pickard, 2020) in ABE/ESL programs.
“The Recruitment Problem (Getting People Into the Program)
“Clymer & Frey (2020) start their discussion by noting, ‘Learner recruitment has been a longstanding concern of adult basic education (ABE) programs. It involves identifying individuals who need and would benefit from the services that adult education provides. …Recruitment requires understanding the motivations that contribute to and the obstacles that prevent individuals from enrolling in programs. …Current participants can provide insight into ways to recruit others with similar backgrounds and ambitions.’
“This approach of using current program participants to find out why many ABE/ESL qualified adults do not attend these programs was followed by Sticht, McDonald, & Erickson (1998) who engaged ABE/ESL adult learners as researchers to conduct interviews with adults they knew about why they did not participate in ABE/ESL. They found that barriers to participation could be categorized into situational, dispositional, and institutional barriers, using categories earlier coined by Cross (1981) in her studies of adult education.
“In their discussion of recruitment barriers, Clymer & Frey (2020) also refer to ‘the three types of participation barriers identified by Cross (1981, p. 99): situational (e.g., health conditions, transportation, childcare), dispositional (e.g., self-perceptions, attitudes), and institutional (e.g., program schedule, formats for instruction, etc.).’ They go on to note that, ‘Organizational knowledge specific to the community can inform program design and services to help manage these barriers and allow more interested learners to engage’ and they discuss various approaches ABE/ESL programs may take to improve their recruitment of adult learners.
“The Persistence Problem (Keeping People in the Program)
“Pickard (2020) kicks off her discussion of persistence noting that, ‘Learner persistence is a well-known concern for the adult basic education (ABE) field, and understandably so. Students may need many hours of instruction to meet educational goals or accountability benchmarks, yet programs consistently report that many students leave without achieving either.’
“In their research on ESL and persistence, Sticht, McDonald, & Erickson (1998) studied how many adult learners who started an 18 week program actually completed the program. They found that 75 percent completed six weeks of study, 50 percent completed 12 weeks, and 33 percent completed the full 18 week semester of classes. They went on to discuss the concept of ‘focus’ and found that the more the focus of a class matched the focal reason adults had for attending a program, e.g., getting a job, helping with children’s school work, completing an educational certificate, the more likely the learners were to complete the full 18 week semester.
“In her review of persistence, Pickard (2020) suggests that, ‘there are two ways, broadly, that the field has viewed student persistence: …A control/prevent perspective sees low learner persistence as a problem that can be prevented by changing programs or learners. In contrast, an acknowledge/accommodate perspective suggests that low learner persistence will likely always be an issue, but may or may not need fixing, depending on the goals and circumstances of the individual learner. It also acknowledges that forces outside the control of either learners or programs often determine whether learners persist.’
“In Pickard’s categorization scheme for persistence, the finding by Sticht, McDonald, & Erickson (1998) that engaging learners in programs that better match the learner’s focal goal for attending falls within the control/prevent perspective on increasing persistence.
“In her review, Pickard considers a number of actions programs might take to moderate persistence issues of both control/prevent and acknowledge/accommodate perspectives.
“One approach programs have used to acknowledge and accommodate the problem of adults dropping out of programs and then returning later on has been to conduct what have been called ‘open entry/open exit’ programs. This permits adults to enter and leave and reenter and leave, etc. as their circumstances dictate. But this acknowledge/ accommodate approach to persistence issues may cause another problem, which Sticht, McDonald, & Erickson (1998) dubbed the ‘turbulence’ problem caused by having students constantly entering and dropping out of one program. In their research, they found turbulence rates as high as 200 percent. They cite research showing that these sorts of comings and goings may have a detrimental effect on how well learners in the program achieve.
“Taking cognizance of the many issues involved in enhancing persistence in ABE/ESL programs, Pickard (2020) concludes with this message: ‘Meaningfully supporting learners to persist is complex—any single strategy is unlikely to work by itself or be effective for all students. However, utilizing a range of strategies from both the control/ prevent and the acknowledge/accommodate approaches to persistence can help programs develop effective responses for their local contexts.’”
References
Clymer, C. & Frey, S. (2020, May). Student Recruitment: A Review of the Research. A ProLiteracy Research Brief. (Available online at: https://proliteracy.org/briefs#StudentRecruitment)
Cross. K. (1981).Adults as Learners: Increasing Participation and Facilitating Learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Pickard, A. (2020, November). Perspectives On Persistence: A Review of the Research. A ProLiteracy Research Brief. (Available online at: https://proliteracy.org/briefs#Persistence)
Sticht, Thomas G. Ed. Reading for Working: A Functional Literacy Anthology. Human Resources Research Organization, Alexandria, Va. 75 194p. (Available online at: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED102532)
Sticht, T., McDonald, B., & Erickson, P. (1998). Passports to paradise: The Struggle to Teach and to Learn on the Margins of Adult Education. (Available online at: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED418238)
ELLs from very poor countries often lack an education foundation from their home country. They find the academics overwhelming in community college programs. A second problem is that most adult immigrants need to earn a living ASAP. They rarely have anyone to help them out, and they may have dependent children that require care and money. I’ve taught adult ELLs that would struggle to stay awake because they worked all night and came to school in the morning. I have even had high school students that have tried to do the same. They are exhausted from trying to manage it all.
retired teacher Reading your note made my bones tired. What a string of hurdles to get over. CBK
This is what Social studies education has always been about, citizenship education, nothing really new here. The problem is that too many have thought that teaching history, the basic, all inclusive, course work to implement what needs to be done, has been ignored, deemphasized to make room for hard sciences and mathematics. We are paying the price. We must also include the other humanities, art, literature and music to help our young people to develop the skills they need to be good, intelligent citizens of our country and the world. Fareed Zakaria wrote a book about the importance of a liberal education, including ideas we to which we can all agree. He made one glaring error when he suggested these ideas of his are for college students not K-12 pupils. Of course, we are dealing with children and while we do our best have to be realistic as classroom teachers. The pressures to correct the ills of society placed on under resourced public schools is unrealistic. At the end of the school day the kids go home, where our influence will be supported or not.
During my 37 years of teaching History and Government in the Public Schools of Michigan, until my retirement in 2002 I observed the slow destruction of teaching of Civics and Critical Thinking in the State’s Social Studies Curriculum.
We were under the control of Republican Legislatures nearly the whole time and steadily they began to attack public school teachers and the public schools more and more. When the annual Michigan Assessment of Educational Progress tests began to include sections on Social Studies critical thinking and civics dropped out of the curriculum. Civics is required by state law, but it is assumed to be in our history and government curriculum. Since it isn’t tested in the MEAP, now the SAT in high school, and the Legislature has tied the teacher’s salaries and tenure to the scores on these meaningless [to the kids] high stakes [to the teachers] tests teaching the skill of critical thinking and basic civics has disappeared. Texts like the famous Magruder’s American Government did still have materials to teach these skills in them when I retired, but teachers who know that these skills cannot be tested on a standardized test just skip over them and stress what will be tested, since their future depends on their student’s scores.
I personally believed that the Republicans understood that their turn the clock back to some mythical age was not a winning strategy in future elections unless future voters lacked critical thinking skills and an understanding of a citizens’ civic duties. Their wealthy supporters, like Michigan’s DeVos family, who also claimed to be educational reformers understand that if they can control the state’s curriculum and eventually make all education private they can train a docile workforce with no say in their hours, wages, and working conditions.
What really upset me was in the 80s and 90s I could see this coming because the Charter School “movement” was out to destroy free public education controlled by publicly elected school boards. But I was “just a classroom teacher” and wasn’t considered an expert on education, only folks with an advanced degree who taught at the University Schools of Education [who either had never been or hadn’t been in a real classroom for years] were the “Experts” and they bought into the Charter School Myth that DeVos, Walton, Gates and others were touting.
If you really want to reform and improve education you have to ask actual classroom teachers what they want and need. The first thing they will tell you is smaller class sizes and more paid preparation and grading time.
I hear you loud and clear. The last ones to be considered are the ones who know.
Very well said, Mr. Kolk. Thank you!
Best comment on this thread.
Yes.
Kennth, I agree with you. Republicans don’t care about public education, and actively work to undermine it. And, as I’ve written at this blog many times, far too may district- and school-level administrators are essentially clueless about the historic mission of public schools.
In my experience most district and school level administrators are actually failed coaches. There are not that many PE classes for failed coaches and the state of Michigan has made it difficult for people to be certified in a general area (social studies, language arts, science, math, etc) unless they have a 30 hour major or 18 hour minor in the exact subject. Besides the booster’s club, fellow administrators, and Boards of Ed are all familiar with and like the “old coach”. In Michigan there is no certification required to be an Administrator! Go Figure.
Thanks for your sage comments.
Civics? Nonsense! The only thing we need to teach students is how to write code to program their future robot overlords. STEM. Just kidding.
Code: teach students, read, discuss</the bleeding obvious>
WordPress eliminated the first part of my code, same as the last part without the /.
With advanced AI the machines will program themselves.
Eventually, They will program themselves to eliminate humans from the equation (quite literally)
Until then , they will satisfy themselves with shocking the humans.
Personalized Teaching
When teachers are all gone
The bots will teach the children
Shock them when they’re wrong
Like Dr. Stanley Milgram
We need to teach them not just to write code, but to write very bad code that is full of security holes and doesn’t do what the public wants it to do.
You know,like Bill Gates does.
This recommendation sounds exactly right. A forthright, reasonably “woke” new version of civics is exactly what we need and have long been missing. At the same time, the suggestions about when to introduce the more controversial topics, by grade and maturity level, are sensible.
I am interested that Andrea Gabor’s call for a high stakes national exam on civics has not drawn any criticism or concern here. Would it be safe to assume that the orthodox view of folks on this blog that such a high stakes standardized exam is a good idea?
No, we don’t need a national civics exam, nor a national history exam. NAEP occasionally tests history, even civics. The results are usually dismal. These are subjects that require discussion, not “right” answers.
So it would be best to let the Republican legislators decide what is “civics” in states where they are a majority and the Democrats decide what is “civics” in the states where they are a majority?
It is not clear to me how this will unify the country, but I look forward to being enlightened.
A national exam would be a horrendous idea. I was peripherally involved in the promotion of the National Standards on Civic Education in the early 90s, ones that Diane helped draft, edit and promote. The intent then, as they should be now, was not to create a national curriculum but, instead, a resource for teachers for ideas to teach. And Lynne Cheney didn’t dare criticize them. They were exceptional and now belong to the proverbial dustbin.
GregB,
The national exam is part of the proposal here. Did you miss that?
I guess I did miss it, the only thing I read was the proposal about Florida middle school students who could fail the class and have an opportunity to retake the test. I think that’s a bad idea too. I’m even opposed to states mandating civic education. I would encourage to give schools and teachers the autonomy to decide their own curricula and be held accountable for it by engaged principals and school boards.
Any good high school would include civic education in its curriculum. As they would have math, English, sciences, arts and physical education. Neither of the schools in which I taught were subject to mandates. One taught civics in 9th grade, the other taught government in 12th grade. And they weren’t taught as an afterthought, they were integral to the curriculum.
GregB,
They would have the opportunity to retake the test in junior high and if they failed, they would not be allowed to attend high school. It would seem to me that this is the ultimate in high stakes standardized exams.
On the other hand, it is not clear to me that folks here would be happy with local control over “civics” exams.Would you be happy with whatever the local school districts decided to count as “civics” education?
We don’t need a civics test. The federal government has no business telling teachers what to teach or how to teach it. What the federal government has the responsibility to do is create and enforce laws against segregation, funding disparities, and unequal access: Title I, Title IX, etc.
The fact that we even have to discuss this in 2020 in our would-be “democracy” speaks volumes about how far we’ve fallen since the testers took over. But we have been bombarded with attacks on government all my life–80 years–and they have taken their toll. Lots of people–especially the young–don’t realize–have never experienced real civics education. When I taught we used mock legislatures, city councils, congresses, trials, etc. to help students learn not only some of facts about democracy, but how it actually works, when it does. Clearly the party of Trump, Gingrich, & McCarthy do not want any form of democracy, unless it’s a “democracy” or wealthy white men.
Jack D. Burgess COPY THAT. CBK
If I’m a poor kid of color why would I think that old white men would do anything to help me, I’d think “civics” was an example of White Privilege .. another way of keep us down … Trump, Biden, same thing …
Civics shouldn’t just be taught, they should be the focus of public education. And, for the record, Andrea Gabor’s endorsement of Advanced Placement courses – again…sheesh! – is woefully short-sighted.
As I’ve noted at this blog before, we are now at a place and time when the American Republic in is peril. Anyone who doesn’t realize this hasn’t been paying attention. And anyone who thinks that AP courses – and tests – are the way out just isn’t thinking clearly, and probably just isn’t thinking at all.
Former Stanford School of Education Dean Deborah Stipek wrote in 2002 that AP courses were nothing more than “test preparation courses,” that too often “contradict everything we know about engaging instruction.” That was echoed in a comprehensive 2002 study by the National Research Council, which concluded that “existing programs for advanced study [AP] are frequently inconsistent with the results of the research on cognition and learning.” And a four-year study at the University of California found that while AP is increasingly an “admissions criterion,” there is no evidence that the number of AP courses taken in high school has any relationship to performance in college.
In The ToolBox Revisited (2006) Clifford Adelman scolded those who had misrepresented his original ToolBox research by citing the importance of AP in explaining bachelor’s degree completion. Adelman said, “To put it gently, this is a misreading.” Moreover, in statistically analyzing the factors contributing to the earning of a bachelor’s degree, Adelman found that Advanced Placement did not reach the “threshold level of significance.”
College Board executives often say that if high schools implement AP courses and encourage more students to take them, then (1) more students will be motivated to go to college and (2) high school graduation rates will increase. Researchers Kristin Klopfenstein and Kathleen Thomas “conclude that there is no evidence to back up these claims.”
In fact, the unintended consequences of pushing more AP may lead to just the reverse. As 2010 book on AP points out “research…suggests that many of the efforts to push the program into more schools — a push that has been financed with many millions in state and federal funds — may be paying for poorly-prepared students to fail courses they shouldn’t be taking in the first place…not only is money being misspent, but the push may be skewing the decisions of low-income high schools that make adjustments to bring the program in — while being unable to afford improvements in other programs.”
Do some students “benefit” from taking AP courses and tests? Sure. But, students who benefit the most are “students who are well-prepared to do college work and come from the socioeconomic groups that do the best in college are going to do well in college.”
So, why do students take AP? Because they’ve been told to do so. Because they’re “trying to look good” to colleges in the “increasingly high-stakes college admission process,” and because, increasingly, “high schools give extra weight to AP courses when calculating grade-point averages, so it can boost a student’s class rank.” It’s become a rather depraved stupid circle.
One student who got caught up in the AP hype cycle –– taking 3 AP courses as a junior and 5 as a senior –– and only got credit for one AP course in college, reflected on his AP experience. He said nothing about “rigor” or “trying to be educated” or the quality of instruction, but remarked “if I didn’t take AP classes, it’s likely I wouldn’t have gotten accepted into the college I’m attending next year…If your high school offers them, you pretty much need to take them if you want to get into a competitive school. Or else, the admissions board will be concerned that you didn’t take on a “rigorous course load.” AP is a scam to get money, but there’s no way around it. In my opinion, high schools should get rid of them…”
What do students actually learn from taking these “rigorous” AP courses and tests? For many, not much. One student remarked, after taking the World History AP test, “dear jesus… I had hoped to never see “DBQ” ever again, after AP world history… so much hate… so much hate.” And another added, “I was pretty fond of the DBQ’s, actually, because you didn’t really have to know anything about the subject, you could just make it all up after reading the documents.” Another AP student related how the “high achievers” in his school approached AP tests:
An AP reader, one of those “experts” cited often by Jay Mathews at The Washington Post, related this about the types of essays he saw:
“I read AP exams in the past. Most memorable was an exam book with $5 taped to the page inside and the essay just said ‘please, have mercy.’ But I also got an angry breakup letter, a drawing of some astronauts, all kinds of random stuff. I can’t really remember it all… I read so many essays in such compressed time periods that it all blurs together when I try to remember.”
A 2013 study from Stanford notes that “increasingly, universities seem to be moving away from awarding credit for AP courses.” The study pointed out that “the impact of the AP program on various measures of college success was found to be negligible.” And it adds this: “definitive claims about the AP program and its impact on students and schools are difficult to substantiate.”
I know a school that for years has held an AP-originated “civics project”, a mock election, replete with student-created political ads. The school considered it a big success. The central office administration liked it, the school board too. But no one ever asked the students what they thought, what they gleaned from this “civics project.” When finally asked to complete and evaluation of the project and to add their comments, the results were stunning. They rated the project poorly, and said, while “fun”, they actually learned little, and said it was mostly a “waste of time.”
A democratic society is predicated and contingent on a citizenry that understands and is committed to democratic values. In any democratic society, the people ARE the government. Aristotle noted that democracy (demos) is the populace, the common people. Thus if all citizens are part of self-rule, then they are “a part of the state, and the care of each part is inseparable from the care of the whole.” That is the essence of the social contract.
Public education is an integral of the social contract. And that’s exactly why public schooling holds a unique place in democracies, and why it’s so important. In ‘Theory and Practice of the Social Studies,’ University of Chicago social scientist Earl Johnson called democratic citizenship “the supreme end of education in a democracy.” Horace Mann viewed public education as “the balance-wheel of the social machinery” in a democratic society. And Gordon Hullfish and Philip Smith, writing in ‘Reflective Thinking: The Method of Education,’ considered the development of critical intelligence –– which they described as the “reflective reconstruction of knowledge, insights and values” –– essential to the maintenance of a democratic republic.
And yet we have public school educators and ‘leaders’ — and lots and lots of others — slobbering all over STEM, and ‘academies,’ and LOTS of technology, and SATs and ACTs, and Advanced Placement, and “college and careers.” Most of it is just phony baloney. Little if any of it gets to what ought to be the focus – the raison d’être – of public schooling.
Setting the record straight about public education is vitally important. Because it’s not just about schooling. It’s about family income, and wages, and a shared sense of community. It’s about needed services and the public good. It’s about a government “of the people, by the people, for the people.” It’s about the vibrancy, well-being and future of democracy itself.
As Ben Franklin was said to have responded when asked what kind of government the Framers had produced at the Constitutional Convention:
“A Republic, if you can keep it.”
Indeed.
This in the Huffington Post this morning:
“A FORMER PRINCIPAL HAS SOME THOUGHTS FOR BIDEN Before he ousted longtime Democrat Rep. Eliot Engel in a stunning primary win earlier this year, Rep.-elect Jamaal Bowman was a public middle school principal in New York City. Now, as he prepares to enter the House, Bowman hopes to push Biden to choose a secretary of education who would understand the struggles faced by public school educators. [HuffPost]” CBK
As a retired educator, I’d love to be part of a Teach Corp to help teach everyone who lives here about government. Not just how our system words but how it is different from other forms of government. Additionally, it’s important to help people understand how social psychology, social media, strategic planning, and laws can influence the balance of power. Last of all, people should know about how information is manipulated as well as how to ferret out facts so they can make informed decisions for themselves.
I’m of a certain age and remember the equal time rule and the fairness doctrine. In this day and age, I believe older people can provide needed and trusted guidance to help mend the divisions that have occurred.
It takes all of us to make America great. The Blue areas evidently produce the most GDP and the red areas provide the food and important manufacturing. The differences in how race, religion, and concepts related to personal freedom interact with politics create a challenging but not impossible chiasm.
Unfortunately, we missed the perfect opportunity to work together to overcome the effects of the pandemic. It seems like the common good wasn’t a goal worthy of our working together. Be it fear, hate, ignorance, or some other roadblock like politics we all now have to pay the price through higher taxes, higher health care costs, or other economic and social costs.
I envision, quick, easy, fun, creative ways to communicate with all stakeholders to build a culture of understanding and cooperation as we move into a new era.
We need to teach about the whole bureaucracy—EPA, FDA, etc.—to inoculate against Deep State paranoia.
Civics class should also cover budget. Too many Americans think their taxes are used mostly to support lazy welfare recipients. They need a big dose of hard facts.