(Concord, NH) I am here for one of a series of fairly regular meetings on civic education in New Hampshire. Justice David Souter is an engaged and thoughtful participant in the group. To get a sense of his underlying values, see his comments at a Harvard Law School event recently. He was on a panel with Justice O’Connor, Prof. Lawrence Tribe, and Kenneth Starr (in his new role as president of Baylor University). But I thought Justice Souter stole the show with an impassioned and substantive mini-speech that starts around minute 7 on the video below. His thesis: America fortunately promotes freedom and diversity, but we need some commonality to counter the “disuniting tendencies” of our time, the “wealth disparities,” the impact of money on politics, and other “atomizing and disuniting” forces.  Our common ground is a constitutional value-system that is neutral with respect to religion and culture. In order to appreciate that constitutional creed or heritage, you must understand it. That requires facts–hence, civic education.

My own remarks earlier in the same conference don’t seem to be on YouTube, but I had argued for setting a high standard and not settling for kids being able to memorize the answers to a civics test. I made a similar point in my recent CNN piece.

In lieu of a post here today, I have a piece on CNN.com entitled “Citizenship isn’t about passing a civics test.” Please read it there, but it begins:

As Congress debates immigration law, it cannot avoid debating citizenship. Who gets to be a citizen? And what should citizens know, believe, and do?

Under current law, would-be citizens must pass the U.S. Naturalization Test, which poses factual questions about civics and history such as: “What are two rights in the Declaration of Independence?” …

This test assumes that a competent citizen knows some basic information about the U.S. political system. Most American students must demonstrate similar competence. All U.S. states have standards for K-12 social studies and, typically, the teacher assesses knowledge with paper-and-pencil tests that resemble the naturalization test.

One question is whether these requirements reflect a worthy definition of citizenship. …. Another question is whether studying for short-answer tests teaches people much …

Today, CIRCLE released a new study entitled “Do Discussion, Debate, and Simulations Boost NAEP Civics Performance?,” by our lead researcher, Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg. The NAEP surveys a representative sample of 26,000 students. It asks them detailed questions about their civic knowledge, plus some items about what they have experienced in social studies classes. We find that students who have discussed current events, debated current issues, and participated in simulations (such as mock trial, Model UN, or iCivics) score higher on the NAEP. These pedagogies have other purposes, such as teaching young people to deliberate and interesting them in the news. The NAEP does not test those outcomes. Thus it is especially good news that these interactive teaching methods are associated with higher NAEP scores.

However, three concerns arise. First, upper-income students and White students are more likely to receive these experiences. Second, the expected patterns do not apply at the fourth grade level, where more discussion, debate, and simulation is associated with lower NAEP scores. And third, White and affluent students appear to benefit the most from these experiences.

I would guess that the fourth grade results can be explained by the extremely small amount of time allocated to social studies: about 1.7 hours per week. That may produce a real tradeoff: either learn to discuss current events or learn the material tested on the NAEP Civics (such as the Bill of Rights).

The unequal impact of these practices at 8th and 12th grade requires more attention. We often see the opposite pattern–disadvantaged young people benefiting more from good education, because they don’t get the same experiences elsewhere. It could be that the quality of these pedagogies is worse, on average, in schools that serve low-income and minority youth.  Or perhaps the curricular modules are not culturally appropriate–for example, if the topics that the kids debate are more relevant in suburbia than in the inner cities. Or perhaps we were unable to account for other factors in the local environment (such as bad governments) that reduce the impact of civic education.

In any case, these practices do benefit all groups at the 8th- and 12th-grade levels, so they should be encouraged and supported.

I am speaking today at “Civics Education: Why it Matters to Democracy, Society and You,” an event sponsored by the Harvard Law School and the Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools. The far more prominent speakers include Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, Justice David Souter, Judge Kenneth Starr, Under Secretary of Education Martha Kanter, Prof. Larry Tribe, MacArthur Foundation President Robert Gallucci, McCormick Foundation President David Hiller, and many more.

It is a show of strength for civics. I hope it leads to action, or at least public notice. My greatest fear: everyone will assume that kids today don’t know any civics, so we should require and test that subject. Actually, most states already require a civics class, students are required to learn perennial facts about the US political system and are tested on that information, and hence, if you ask a random national sample of 12th graders the decision in Marbury v. Madison, 69% can tell you correctly (without studying or prepping).*

Prompted by anecdotal information about what people don’t know, regular panics about poor civic knowledge lead to prescriptions that are far too modest or even trivial, such as making students pass the citizenship test that is required for naturalization. Students already learn a lot more than that. Our standards should be much higher. Students should, for example, learn to analyze public policies and deliberate and act on current problems.

I’m on the agenda relatively early and hope to make that point forcefully.

*From the 2010 federal NAEP Civics Assessment.