(Washington, DC) Yesterday, I and others spoke at the Brookings Institution on “Teaching America: The Case for Civic Education.” (Summary and audio here.) Today, the White House will host a conference entitled “For Democracy’s Future: Education Reclaims Our Civic Mission.” At that event, Secretary Duncan will speak “on connecting college, career and citizenship,” and a report will be released entitled “A Crucible Moment: College Learning & Democracy’s Future.” The White House conference can be viewed live at www.whitehouse.gov/live.

Here’s my current “elevator speech” about civics:

Many people bemoan the poor state of students’ knowledge of the US Constitution and political system and call for course requirements and tests. That’s what “strengthening civics” means to them.

But students actually don’t do badly on basic questions related to the Constitution and the US political system–probably because almost all of them are already required to study those topics, and many face high-stakes tests. (I am in Washington to help plan the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in civics, and my colleagues who are middle-school teachers are confident that their 8th graders know all about Marbury v Madison, Brown v Board, and Tinker v US–although maybe not New York Times v. Sullivan.)

In any case, CIRCLE has found no impact of course requirements or mandatory tests on what students know about the constitution and the US political system. So demanding more courses and tests is beside the point. The real problem is that kids don’t learn how to deliberate with people who disagree with them and then plan responsible, productive, collaborative voluntary action on current civic issues. Deliberation used to be taught in the prevalent course known as “Problems of Democracy,” but the “Problems” course was cut in most states after 1970. (Congratulations to Hawaii for putting it back recently, under the name “Participating in Democracy.”)

To put deliberation-plus-civic-action back in the curriculum would be tough. It would require standards focused more on deliberative skills and civic engagement than on abstract political science. States would have to change course requirements to encourage classes that involve moderated discussions of current events and civic activities. Individual, paper-and-pencil tests would have to be replaced by assessments of how students talk and work in groups. (Computer simulations are promising for that purpose.) Finally, teachers would need opportunities to learn how to moderate deliberations and think about civic action.

In one sense, adding a single new course seems like no big deal. But it would require substantial shifts in policies and resources and a new understanding of what’s important about citizenship.

I see promising signs. H.R.3464, the Sandra Day O’Connor Civic Learning Act of 2011, would authorize the federal government to collect better data on students’ civic knowledge and would create a grant competition for innovative programs that focus on disadvantaged kids. It would require and fund evaluation, so this would be an innovation fund:

Meanwhile, Hawaii has required a new Participating in Democracy course for all its high school students. That is exactly the kind of experiential course that was common in the mid-1900s but that was cut almost everywhere after 1970 because it seemed too controversial and it didn’t imitate any particular college course. High school students still take social studies, but now most of their courses are in college disciplines like history, economics, and geography. (American Government is really political science). Hawaii’s new course revives the idea that actually experiencing citizenship should be part of the curriculum.

There are also stirrings of improvement in testing and evaluation–shifts away from pencil-and-paper tests (which poorly measure civic skills) toward group activities. And there is talk of better standards: not lists of concrete facts that people should know, but broader and deeper topics and skills that they should master.

Here are two proposals for “civic badges” entered in the Digital Media and Learning Competition. Public comments are being welcomed on the DML site–please click through to read and discuss:

• Preparation for Volunteer Service, proposed by the Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service at Tufts and its partners.
• Citizenship Badge and Portfolio Program for New Hampshire Students, proposed by the New Hampshire Supreme Court Society’s Task Force on Civic Education and its partners.

(For full disclosure, I played a role in drafting both proposals and might be involved in the work if either was funded.)

Background: Major organizations such as the MacArthur Foundation, Mozilla (which produces the Firefox browser), and the US Department of Commerce are interested in “badges.” The idea comes originally from scouting: scouts win badges for skills or accomplishments like packing a backpack or raking neighbors’ leaves. But in an age of sophisticated and stylish computer games, the “badging” concept no longer feels childish. Youth and young adults are now accustomed to attaining levels of competence and success online.

In the educational context, badging offers several potential advantages: 1) It is an alternative to high-stakes testing. It can motivate people to learn–and schools to teach–without creating new ways to fail. 2) It can make labor markets work better by indicating exactly what skills an individual has. It can thus help people obtain jobs they would otherwise miss–and help firms find the right workers. The same advantages would also apply to unpaid civic work. 3) It allows the tasks of education and assessment to be shared or distributed, instead of being assigned to schools alone. The same badge could be awarded by a school, a church, or a private firm.

I see special advantages for civic skills. They are ignored by today’s high-stakes tests, yet adding new civics exams would simply create new ways for students to fail. Also, teaching active citizenship has traditionally been a shared responsibility of schools and civil society. With badges, many organizations could teach and assess citizenship. Finally, civic skills are intrinsically controversial. Some people think that occupying Wall Street is a valid skill, while others see it as a threat. The same is true of organizing prayer breakfasts in public schools. If states must provide standardized curricula and tests in civics, they will try to strip out all controversy. But a badging system is flexible: diverse groups can create and award badges, contributing to a rich and contentious democracy.

Back in September, we released a report entitled Civic Health and Unemployment: Can Engagement Strengthen the Economy? It was based on an analysis of all 50 states and 50 major metro areas and found that their levels of civic engagement before the recession strongly predicted how well they have weathered the economic crisis. I wrote about the study in a HuffPost piece that still seems to draw regular tweets. And now former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and former Senator and Governor Bob Graham (D-FL) have made the study the focus of a joint op-ed in USA Today, entitled “Jobs and Civics Go Hand in Hand.”

Both of these leaders are dedicating extraordinary attention to civic education and civic renewal:

• O’Connor co-chairs the Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools, founded iCivics to produce computer games for civic education, and speaks tirelessly about civic education–for instance, at a recent interactive session with Chicago youth.
• Graham, who taught civics in a Miami high school while he was a state legislator, wrote America, the Owner’s Manual: Making Government Work for You as an alternative primer on civics and has made the Bob Graham Center at University of Florida into a leader on civic education at the k-12 and college levels.

We should be especially grateful because these two citizens are about as busy as you can possibly be in “retirement.” Graham chairs the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism, served on the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, and co-chaired the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, whose report has been unusually well reviewed. He has also published a thriller this year. O’Connor hears cases, writes children’s books, serves on boards, and advocates for redistricting and judicial reform.