In today’s democracy, are schools adequately preparing students for life beyond school, as civic participants and citizens? Surely, that is a worthy goal, but civic education may also be a direct means to student achievement. School reform efforts have focused on improving basic literacy for decades. After a visit to George Washington High School in Chicago, IL, we ask whether that work – to improve the effectiveness of schools - might be realized by connecting learning with the lived experience of students in the community. Watch the story of what happens when a school infuses civics across the curriculum - in and out of school - and nurtures relationships of respect and trust between teachers, students, and the community. Now a top performing school, Washington High School does well by its students and its community. Where many of us look to address the current shortcomings of democracy through education, we may well also fuel education through democracy.
 
Watch the CivXNow documentary to see how Chicago's George Washington High School used civics to drive change.
Since implementing the  new state requirement for civic education , the school has seen a complete turnaround. Academic achievement is up, discipline incidents are down, and the school is a place where students thrive and feel a sense of belonging and pride. 

The school’s story holds a valuable lesson. Now, one need only walk into the school to feel how invested students are in it. As Ward 10 Alderwoman Garza states in the  documentary , “Now, kids want to come here...and that filters out back into the community.” Investing in the civic life of schools suggests a pathway for a new kind of education reform, one in which fueling democracy through education will also fuel education through democracy. We think this is a model worth exploring. 

Learn more about  best practices in civic education , and  join the CivXNow movement  to ensure every school in the nation fulfills its historic and vital civic mission!

A shoutout to the McCormick Foundation for its work at Washington High School as well as CivXNow member Mikva Challenge !
 
Inside this newsletter:
  • We Want to Hear from You!
  • New Coalition Members
  • Coalition Happy Hour 
  • California Seal of Civic Engagement
  • Research Highlight - Educating for American Democracy
  • Upcoming Webinar with Raj Vinnakota 
We Want to Hear from You!

We're in the process of redesigning the CivXNow website. Part of the website’s new Coalition page will include more information about member organizations so we can spread the word about all the wonderful partners that have joined the CivXNow movement. We also want to ensure CivXNow’s current efforts and future initiatives are strengthened by receiving your feedback. Please  let us know more about your organization and any thoughts you have about CivXNow by  completing the brief survey here !   
New Coalition Members

Working in concert with one another, we believe that we can ensure every school fulfills its vital civic mission that all students have access to quality civic education and are prepared with the knowledge and skills necessary for authentic, informed, and effective civic engagement. The CivXNow Coalition now stands strong at 116 member organizations! We remain deeply appreciative of all of your efforts and what we have already accomplished together.
 
Some of the latest additions to the Coalition include:
 
These organizations will be added to the full list of members on the CivXNow website . Please join us in welcoming them to the Coalition! Several other organizations are also in the process of joining. We urge you to recruit new members that share our goals. We are especially interested in recruiting more national organizations with large, scaled networks, state civic learning coalitions, youth voice organizations, organizations that represent rural or urban communities, and organizations that are active in K-12 after-school activities.
Coalition Happy Hour at NCSS

Will you be at NCSS in Austin, TX on Friday, November 22, 2019? Join us for an in-person CivXNow Coalition Member Happy Hour from 5pm to 6pm CT in the game room at Austin Taco Project, 500 E 4th St, Austin, TX 78701 to meet your CivXNow team members and network with other CivXNow partners! RSVP here
 
Do you have an upcoming SXSWedu panel or other event we can help you advertise? If so, let us know by contacting Patricia Leslie-Brown !
California Seal of Civic Engagement

The state of California is in the process of developing the “State Seal of Civic Engagement” — a program through which students in the Golden State could earn a special seal on their high school diplomas that denote that they have demonstrated the successful completion of history, government, and civics courses, including courses that incorporate character education, and voluntary participation in community service or extracurricular activities. The exact criteria for the seal, which was established through legislation in October of 2017, must be filed by the state’s superintendent to the California State School Board by Jan. 1, 2020, and approved by the Board by January 31, 2021. Joe Kahne , the Co-Director of the Civic Engagement Research Group (CERG) at the University of California, Riverside, is one of numerous individuals and groups working on this agenda. He spoke with CivXNow about the project.

CivXNow: Can you tell me about the genesis of the California Seal of Civic Engagement?

Kahne:  For the past few years, a group of people throughout the state of California have been advocating for greater attention to civic education and pushing to make it part of the educational experience of all youth in the state. Growing out of a movement launched by the California Task Force on K-12 Civic Learning , a coalition of groups including the Department of Education, state legislators, civic education organizations, researchers, educational reform groups, funders, and some districts and county offices of education have joined forces to advance the idea that students should be able to earn a seal on their diploma to recognize their civic engagement in the same way that they can earn a seal for biliteracy.

CivXNow: What are some of the challenges in a project like this?

Kahne: The State Board of Education seems quite open and interested in the Seal, but there are a lot of details to work out. It's really important to think about how to do this well and equitably. And by that I mean that a lot of districts don't necessarily have the resources or staffing and programming to support all students to earn the Seal. Another challenge is to craft the criteria for the Seal in a way that doesn’t just focus on completion of related coursework. Civic engagement is about much more than earning a B or better in U.S. Government. It is important to find a way to attend to the importance of civic knowledge, civic action, and civic dispositions in the criteria for earning the Seal. 

CivXNow: What are some of the criteria for students to meet in order to earn the Seal?

Kahne: The criteria may change, but right now demonstration of a competent understanding of U.S. and California constitutions, as well as tribal government structures, and democratic principles and processes is one of the criteria for the Seal. Another criterion focuses on informed participation in one or more civic engagement projects to address real world problems. Students will also be encouraged to complete a written or oral reflection on a project. Finally, they will be asked to exhibit character traits consistent with active civic engagement, which they may demonstrate by gathering a letter or two of support.

CivXNow: Would this work have to be done within the school context?

Kahne: Folks are also trying to come up with a way for students to earn the Seal by working in their communities, whether it's through their church or youth organization or doing something independently at a soup kitchen or helping out at a senior center. Any of those forms of engagement could be ways in which one would demonstrate deep commitment. My sense is that those promoting the Seal want schools and districts to honor community work or other forms of civic activity even if it wasn’t organized by the school. There's a lot of work to do to figure out exactly how to build those important bridges between civic engagement experiences in and out of school so that it is efficient and respectful of and responsive to the range of organizations that might be involved.

CivXNow: Some of the criteria are subjective. Who would judge whether students meet them?

Kahne: That is one of the challenges of this project. The State Board of Education will likely give local districts and schools the flexibility to determine whether students have met the criteria. It will be important for various tools to be developed, such as one or more rubrics that would identify what a high quality project is and what an in-depth written or oral reflection entails. Schools will likely need to establish a committee that assesses evidence of students’ competence and signs off on it. But that has yet to be determined. Our hope is that promising tools, examples, and models will be shared across the state for schools and districts to draw upon.

CivXNow: The Seal would be for individual students, but are there thoughts about how to also measure the success of schools and districts when it comes to civics?

Kahne: This is very important - it’s vital to use the Seal as part of an effort to support and promote an improved opportunity structure for civic education. For example, right now we're working in Riverside Unified School District (RUSD). RUSD is very interested in ensuring a high percentage of young people earn the Seal. Doing that will require programming that enables high quality civic education learning experiences throughout the curriculum. The number of students who earn the Seal may become a meaningful indicator of how well the district is doing in promoting this agenda. While the Seal is an individual achievement, we would hope it would be something that schools aim to build and promote on a systemwide basis.

CivXNow: You mentioned a number of stakeholders involved in this project. Why is that important?

Kahne: There definitely are multiple stakeholders who care about this issue. And the goal is to develop the project so that it will give space for these stakeholders to contribute in the ways they can. For example, there are people who think primarily about schools who want to make sure that the structure of the Seal, when it's finally defined, works well for schools. But there are others who work a lot in youth organizations or community-based groups. It’s vitally important that that sector is able to support youth in earning the Seal as well. 

CivXNow: Does that pose challenges as well?

Kahne: Stakeholders have differing ideas about what it means to demonstrate excellence with respect to civic engagement. We want to come up with criteria that provide appropriate flexibility to incorporate varied priorities. And in addition, it’s super important that the priorities youth value can be pursued. We don’t want to create criteria that only reflect what adults think it means to be engaged in one’s community. So some groups have held focus groups and meetings with young people and more are planned to get their input. And it will be important for school districts to engage youth in these ways as well.  

CivXNow: So is there an incentive for students or schools to participate in this?

Kahne: The main incentive for the student is that they would get the Seal on their diploma. It would recognize the meaningful work the student has done in their community or broader society, which isn’t typically honored in other ways. The Seal could bring other benefits as well. For example, one could imagine that within the University of California, or California State University system, or with the California Community Colleges students who have earned the Seal might be viewed positively. Perhaps schools with a high number of Seal recipients would receive special recognition.

CivXNow: So how do you ensure equity in terms of the schools and students that are able to actually participate in this?

Kahne: This is really important. Clearly, one key aspect will be making sure there are structures to support attainment of the Seal at all high schools and that those structures work to make sure all students have knowledge of and access to these supports. Mobilizing ties to youth organizing groups and a wide range of youth and community organizations will also likely be important. And it also will be important to ensure that diverse priorities and practices of community engagement be attended to so that all groups and individuals can engage civically in ways they find compelling. 

CivXNow: Do do you see this as potentially a national model or a model that other states could follow?

Kahne: Possibly. And other states might bring new innovation to this model. There is definitely lots of potential. But right now we are really just beginning.   
Research Highlight - Educating for American Democracy: A Roadmap for Excellence in History and Civics Education for All Learners  

Paul Carrese is the founding director of the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership at Arizona State University and one of four Principal Investigators on the grant that the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the U.S. Department of Education just awarded to Educating for American Democracy: A Roadmap for Excellence in History and Civics Education for All Learners . Along with Danielle Allen of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University, Paul Carrese of the School of Civic & Economic Thought and Leadership at Arizona State University, Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg of the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University, Peter Levine of the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts University, and Louise Dube of iCivics , the project will coalesce a team of more than 100 leading academics and practitioners in education, civics, history, and political science to set out a foundation for understanding and teaching American history and civics. The project will culminate in the issuing of a Roadmap that will outline high-priority civics content areas and make clear and actionable recommendations for integrating the teaching of civics and history at every grade band, along with best practices and implementation strategies that teachers, schools, districts and states can use to shape their instructional programs. The group will hold two convenings throughout the next year, and present its Roadmap at a National Forum in Washington, DC in September 2020. 

CivXNow: Tell us about the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership at ASU. 

Carrese: This is a new department. We are just in our third year. It was an initiative started by Arizona’s state government as well as the leadership of Arizona State University (ASU). It’s designed to create a new space in the curriculum for civic education, as well as programming and outreach for discussion of civic thought, and to create a foundation for preparing students for leadership in the public sector and the private sector. We try to reconnect a liberal arts education with civic education at the university level as the best foundation for American students to be ready for the 21st century world, and leadership in civil society, in the professions or in public affairs.

CivXNow: How big is the school now?

Carrese: We are new and still growing. We have about 13 faculty and we have an undergraduate major and a minor, and we are adding a master's degree. We also have a very busy public affairs speakers program called the Civic Discourse Project for civic affairs to be discussed in a civil way. We like to emphasize that free people in liberal democracies always disagree about everything, even though they share certain fundamental values. So this restores some space for that in the university and then, because ASU is a public university, it's really also a space for the broader community.

CivXNow: What are some of the themes you’ve tackled?

Carrese: The theme this year is directly related to the NEH and Department of Education grant project. The theme is Citizenship and Civic Leadership. Last year our theme was on Polarization and Civil Disagreement, restoring that idea, of civil disagreement, and the very first year was on Free Speech and Intellectual Diversity.
 
CivXNow: And how much interest has there been in the school, in terms of enrollment in classes and interest from the general public?

Carrese: We are still small relative to the scale of ASU (America’s largest university), but our student enrollment increases with each new semester. We teach about 300 students each semester in our undergraduate courses, and have about 100 students enrolled as either majors or minors in civic thought and leadership. We're just rolling out the first master's degree. In terms of attendance at our speaker events, we get thousands of people from the local community every year. And then we have a YouTube page. I stopped counting but at last count we were at well over 10,000 hits. We’ve had some marquee speakers such as Cornel West and Robert Putnam from Harvard that have had a very large attendance. We occasionally get members of the state Legislature attending, members of the state Supreme Court and members of the executive branch of government in the state.

CivXNow: And what does the master's degree entail?

Carrese: The masters is for a target audience of teachers who work in traditional schools and also the homeschooling community, which is a big movement, especially in the southwest. So we developed a master's degree to meet a local community need. We refer to it as a Master's of Arts Degree in Classical Liberal Education and Leadership. So it's something of a Western civilization oriented degree. The classics department here at the university is collaborating on the degree with us, but it also has some American politics and American civilization themes in it and also something of a civic leadership aspect to it as well. So it's a curriculum at a master's level to provide greater depth and intellectual development for school teachers working in schools, as well as homeschooling parents who are interested in this idea of liberal arts education for free people who are going to be citizens and leaders.

CivXNow: What role will ASU play in the Educating for American Democracy project?

Carrese: The NEH and U.S. Department of Education grant wanted three convenings, one of which would be in Washington D.C with the others elsewhere in the nation. The goal is to establish a framework for a national study on the condition of U. S. history education and civic education in K-12 schools. We proposed ASU for geographic diversity. It’s west of the Mississippi. And then I worked with a long-time academic colleague at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge to be the host of another of the convenings. So there'll be these two convenings, one in the south, one out here in the southwest, and then the third convening, at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC.

CivXNow: Why is it important to have two state universities in state capitals as hosts of these convenings? 

Carrese: In each case, we are hoping to interest the state government officials, Departments of Education, others who ultimately will have to make decisions about new curricula or new standards for U.S. history and civic education. And I think that's an ambition that the National Endowment for the Humanities and the U. S. Department of Education had in mind for this project. It will be assessing the current state of education and research, while also looking toward a new Roadmap for standards and curriculum. And, of course, implementation of the Roadmap depends ultimately on state governments, state departments of education, as well as local Boards of Education.

CivXNow: What will the convening at ASU focus on exactly?

Carrese: The first convening will be in early February at LSU in Baton Rouge. The second will take place at ASU at the end of March, with the goal of further defining and refining the framework for the final report, and then during the rest of the spring and summer the project's Principal Investors will have a chance to take all the good ideas from the two convenings in Louisiana and Arizona and the Steering Committee to actually write the final report.

This study has assembled a history task force, bringing together scholars with history teachers, the practitioners. We have a political science and civics task force, again with scholars, teachers, practitioners. And the third taskforce is focusing on pedagogy. — and so with the convenings we'll have members from all three Task Forces and the Steering Committee, as well as federal officials coming together to develop the report with a dual focus. First, we will assess what's actually going on in classrooms, and what research tells us about effective American history and civic education. Second, we will propose a new Roadmap with reforms for better modes of teaching and better attention to teaching of U.S. History and civics.

CivXNow: Why is this so important now?

Carrese: Well, America has been so successful that perhaps we have forgotten our educational mission. We're the world's greatest super power and economy, and an enormous cultural, political, military, technological influence globally. And I think the success of all of that has meant that we sort of take for granted how extraordinary and how difficult it is to develop a constitutional liberal democracy. Free people arguing about everything, about self-governing and getting done what needs to get done. We just take it for granted as if, “Look how great we are at it. Who needs to be educated about this?” But liberal democracies and constitutional democracy are difficult things to build and difficult to maintain and operate. To be able to say that America means something, you have to learn how to share certain civic ideals and then argue about them, disagree about just what they mean and how to live up to them, but do that in a civil and constructive way.

CivXNow: Why is this grant important to ASU?

Carrese: ASU is a public university with a president, Michael Crow , who has a very strong sense of our public mission. The national grant project makes perfect sense for us. It fits perfectly with the mission of Arizona State University under his leadership, to bring together university research, scholarship and teaching, as well as an awareness of the local, state and national realities. Promoting deeper civic learning about America and being an informed and engaged citizen is the core mission of the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership and particularly one of our centers, the Center for Political Thought and Leadership.

CivXNow: What do you think this is going to mean for the broader country and for civic education in general?

Carrese: First of all, we aim to produce an excellent study of the state of U.S. history and civic education and an excellent Roadmap. Second, we may define a model of curriculum. And third, we will look at implementation — getting states, departments of education, legislatures, and school boards to think about reforming, changing their curriculum and the emphasis they place on U. S. history and civic education. Our team has hope for the national effect and impact of this study, applying it and implementing it. That's our aim. That's our ambition.
Upcoming Webinar with Raj Vinnakota

In last month’s newsletter , you heard from Raj Vinnakota - President of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation - on his white paper based on a year-long research initiative funded by an incredibly diverse trio of major funders: Hewlett Foundation , Bloomberg Philanthropies , and Koch Foundation . This research is an attempt to map out the civic education landscape, identify what’s in practice, and hopefully attract a broader funding base to support work that produces young people who are well-informed, productively engaged, and hopeful about our democracy. Raj started this project before he joined Woodrow Wilson, and the final report will be housed on the website of his independent consulting firm – Red&Blue Works, LLC . Join us on Tuesday, December 17th at 1pm ET for a webinar to hear more from Raj about this work! 
 
All webinar attendees must register here to receive the dial-in information.
Your CivXNow Team

Our CivXNow team facilitates the publication of this newsletter.

In addition, we are supported by (and very grateful to) several members of the Coalition who - very generously - contribute their energy, time and guidance including: Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics , Mikva Challenge , PACE , McCormick Foundation , Tufts University , Citizen University , Ronald Reagan Foundation , JFK Library Foundation , ConSource , National Conference on Citizenship , Generation Citizen , and many many others who support individual projects.

This important work is generously funded with support from Carnegie Corporation of New York , The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation , and The Robert R. McCormick Foundation .

Sincerely,

Louise Dubé
Executive Director
iCivics
iCivics, Inc.
Cambridge, MA