aecifo

Elections highlight need – and warnings – for civic education – Twin Cities

Umito November 6, 2024

Remember when election time just meant being bombarded with TV ads and mailers?

Today, we are in the age of polarizing, hyperbolic headlines and strangers launching scathing personal attacks on each other on social media.

Americans are so exhausted by the political tone of our country that most are now limiting the amount of information they consume about politics and government, according to the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Election day came and went. But we need to think about what happens next and how we can create a healthier discourse going forward.

This will require a revitalization of civic education in America. And it is clear that this process cannot and should not be led by our federal government.

At the Bill of Rights Institute, we work with more than 76,000 civics and history teachers who serve more than 7.6 million students annually.

Civics education helps young people discover the founding principles that unite us as Americans, regardless of our differences, such as liberty, equality, and freedom. Students also learn to think critically and engage in a civil manner, even with people with whom they disagree.

These skills are lacking in too many Americans today – perhaps an inevitable byproduct of decades of deprioritization of civics education in schools. This has led to calls for significant federal investment and participation in civic education.

Not so fast.

The idea that greater federal investment would improve student achievement should invite skepticism. For example, we have had a Cabinet-level Department of Education since 1980, and there has been no sustained progress in fourth- or eighth-grade reading scores during that time.

Our federal government, regardless of who is in power, is ineffective in allocating resources to improve student learning. The data has shown this for a long time.

Perhaps more worryingly, we must decide whether a hyper-polarized Congress should determine the allocations and conditions of civics education in America.

Inviting politicians who are still arguing about who won the last election to chart the future of civic education is a serious mistake. It’s a recipe for whiplash-inducing changes that could wreak havoc in schools as the political winds shift.

There is no need to speculate about this: it has already happened.

In January 2021, during its final days, the Trump administration released a landmark framework called the 1776 Report. Some historians derided it as far-right propaganda, and Donald Trump has since promised to reinstate the commission who produced it.

In April of that year, the Biden administration’s Department of Education released a grant package extolling the virtues of the New York Times’ “1619 Project,” which faced withering attacks from the right and calls for corrections.

Regardless of your sympathy, these diametrically opposed texts were both approved by the federal government within 90 days of each other. If the federal government assumes a greater role in civic education, we can expect more chaos.

The idea that we cannot improve civic literacy without massive federal participation is a misnomer. We must be wary of the “No Child Left Behind” principle of civic education and the baggage that will accompany it.

Instead, the movement to improve civics education must happen at the local level, where most decisions about funding and curriculum are made. This movement is already happening in places like Johnstown, Pennsylvania, where the University of Pittsburgh-Johnstown and local schools have partnered to strengthen civics education in K-12 classrooms.

These community-based approaches can result in solutions that are faster, more effective, and more locally tailored than anything coming from Washington.
To improve civic education and our national discourse, we need more local initiatives and more local citizens speaking out. But if we touch Uncle Sam’s purse strings, we expect our schools, our teachers and our students to get tangled in it.

David J. Bobb is president and CEO of the Bill of Rights Institute, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that advances civic and historical education. He wrote this for The Fulcrum, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news platform covering efforts to fix our governance systems.

Apre-salomemanzo

Apre-salomemanzo

Elections highlight need – and warnings – for civic education – Twin Cities

Umito

Why aren’t Trump and Harris talking about the slow demise of Social Security?

This new malware uses a rare programming language to evade traditional detection methods

Naples Community Unites, Raises Over $360,000 in Annual Breast Cancer Walk

FIRST ALERT 6 Winter Outlook 2024-25

Elections highlight need – and warnings – for civic education – Twin Cities

Umito

You Might Also Like

Why aren’t Trump and Harris talking about the slow demise of Social Security?

This new malware uses a rare programming language to evade traditional detection methods

Naples Community Unites, Raises Over $360,000 in Annual Breast Cancer Walk

FIRST ALERT 6 Winter Outlook 2024-25