It seems to be the season for new civic simulations. Yesterday, I introduced “Budget Hero” from American Public Media. The same day’s New York Times covered Our Courts, a simulation promoted by Sandra Day O’Connor. (“Our Courts” does not seem to be ready to play quite yet.) Then this morning’s Washington Post mentioned Peace Corps Challenge, a site that allows kids to pretend they are Peace Corps volunteers in the imaginary village of Wanzuzu. They get a local guide, Narina, with whom they tackle problems such as water contamination and girls’ education.

Simulations are as old as Model UN and mock trial. Critics say that they convey the wrong message–that real citizenship begins only later on, when kids turn into adults. Simulations do not tap the actual assets of young people (such as their knowledge of their own communities) or allow them to address real problems. And most children will never grow up to fill the roles that they simulate in the game. For example, there is only one US Representative to the UN, out of 300 million citizens. The Peace Corps is more accessible, but it still turns away, I believe, three quarters of its applicants.

But games have advantages, too. They are absorbing, intellectually challenging, and cost-effective. They can be carefully constructed to promote particular lessons or skills that may then generalize to other domains. The Peace Corps simulation, for example, will be a success if it plants the idea of joining the real Corps or if players learn community problem-solving skills that they can use at home.

Chicago: I’m here for a board meeting of the American Bar Association’s Division of Public Education. With 400,000 members, the ABA is the association of lawyers in the United States; its public education division runs programs and produces materials that contribute to public understanding of the law, rights, justice, the Constitution, and similar topics. Much of the Division’s work is aimed at youth. Its director, Mabel McKinney-Browning, is one of the leaders in the movement for better civic education. She is, among other things, my successor as chair of the Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools. The Division’s website provides a wealth of free materials on legal issues. As a member of the Division’s advisory board, I advocate for the ABA to become a political force for civic education. So far, the ABA has resolved to “urge the amendment of the No Child Left Behind Act if reauthorized, or the adoption of other legislation, to ensure that all students experience high quality civic learning . . . [that] is regularly and appropriately assessed . . . and accorded national educational priority on a par with reading and mathematics.” This position is now something that the Association’s lobbyists in Washington are supposed to advocate.

Jim Youniss (a developmental psychologist from Catholic University) and I are editing a volume of essays on public policies that would help young Americans develop into active and responsible citizens. The various chapters defend policies for schools, political parties, local governments, and other institutions. We just received word that Vanderbilt University Press will publish the book, which means that it should be in bookstores–as they say–this winter. We could use a suggestion for a title. “Policies for Civic Education,” the placeholder title, isn’t very exciting and it probably suggests a narrow focus on schools.

I have been asked to write a short article about my ideal version of democratic education. This is an opportunity to ignore the usual constraints: time, money, and political pressures. The venue for my article will be the CANDE newsletter.* I think I’ll say:

We ought to treat students as citizens, giving them assignments that really matter and that stretch them both intellectually and ethically. Research shows that such opportunities boost their skills, knowledge, and habits. Besides, it is an ethical imperative to treat our fellow human beings–including our youth–as responsible members of the community.

Too often, I think, we ask students to investigate issues and problems that arise within the adolescent world–such as drug and alcohol abuse, eating disorders, or their own stereotypes and prejudices–without asking them to evaluate and change the world that we have created for them. That world starts with the massive and powerful institutions that we have built to school them.

If, as in many school systems, the downtown bureaucracy consumes much of the funding, the most experienced and successful teachers gravitate to the least challenging schools, or the textbooks don’t match the standards, kids will feel the consequences. Therefore, one ideal form of civic education would be research by students into how their own systems are run. They will probably find that the educational system bears some responsibility for any shortcomings or inequities. But they may also find fault with other actors, such as the government as a whole, the teachers’ unions, the taxpayers, or parents and the students themselves.

As long as we are fantasizing (and ignoring all political constraints), we could imagine kids filing Freedom of Information requests, interviewing teachers off the record, attending public meetings, and taking photos of facilities. They could create spreadsheets to estimate the real expenditures of their school system, thereby learning valuable civic and business skills and obtaining power through information. When they uncovered waste and mismanagement, they could develop strategies for reform: alerting the media, filing class-action lawsuits, building public websites, or even working with political challengers. (I said I would ignore all real-world constraints!) They might also discover genuine choices, dilemmas, and constraints that confront their school district. Kids could promote discussion of these choices by providing background materials and convening public meetings.

In my ideal world, research and action on educational issues would continue over years and accumulate. Often, we ask classes to develop their own plans for service or community research, because we see choice as empowering. However, short-term projects rarely amount to much, and they don’t replicate real civic work, which has to be cumulative to be successful. I would love to see new waves of students recruited into ambitious, ongoing programs that combine research, deliberation, direct service, and political action–all focused on their own school systems.

*Citizenship and Democratic Education (CANDE) is a special interest group in the Comparative and International Education Society. With scores of participants from around the world, the SIG provides a community for scholars, practitioners and graduate students concerned about the role of education in democracy. The CIES conference will meet in March in New York City, and anyone interested could participate in March, 2009, in Charleston, South Carolina. The SIG is chaired by Doyle Stevick, University of South Carolina, and editor (with Bradley Levinson) of two books of possible interest to people concerned about civics: Reimagining Civic Education: How Diverse Societies form Democratic Citizens (2007) and Advancing Democracy Through Education? U.S. Influence Abroad and Domestic Practices (in print, 2008).

Joe Kahne and I had an op-ed in Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle entitled “Voter turnout spotlights educational need.” We used the turnout gap between college students and non-college-educated youth as an argument for more equal civic education. This is a link to the online version. According to a friend who lives near San Francisco, “the story was the whole front page of the ‘Insight’ section – complete with rear view picture of tattooed legs at the voting booth.”