The Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools has launched a spiffy website loaded with information. (The Campaign must really exist if we have a website.) On the homepage are the results of a new survey that we conducted jointly with the Alliance for Representative Democracy. It’s a survey of public attitudes toward civic education. There is much good news, including the fact that 71% of adults consider it important to “prepare students to be competent and responsible citizens who participate in our democratic society.” (There was no tradeoff question, however, which asked them to say whether they would put less money or time into basic math, reading, and science skills in order to enhance citizenship education.) In any event, I was somewhat disturbed by the answers to an open-ended question about “the most important reason for including civic education programs in k-12 public schools.” My favorite reasons–encouraging civic or political involvement, preparing better leaders, and sustaining democracy–were mentioned by 13% of respondents, total. The most popular answer was “making better members of society.” This result is consistent with research from focus groups in which many parents said that civic education was a way to improve the personal behavior of other people’s children.

Excellent education in history and civics is necessary to achieve the reading goals of No Child Left Behind (NCLB). That was a theme in today’s discussions of the Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools, which I chaired. The argument goes like this:

1. You can prepare kids to achieve “basic” levels on the fourth grade reading assessment by teaching them skills such as phonics and decoding. But you cannot get them past “basic” at fourth grade, or to any level of competence at the eighth and twelfth grade, without giving them lots of good texts to read and comprehend. They need experience in comprehension. And they need a store of knowledge derived from reading–in other words, some form of “cultural literacy.”

2. Therefore, achieving the reading goals of NCLB requires high-quality instruction in such fields as literature, natural science, history, social science, and current events. Indeed, it requires high-quality instruction in all of those areas, because a narrow curriculum will generate readers with narrow competence.

People who like NCLB should agree with this argument, but so should people who think that NCLB is too much of an unfunded mandate or that it puts too much emphasis on high-stakes tests. These critics also want students to read.

Philosophically, one might argue that teaching civics in order to enhance reading skills is putting the cart before the horse. Public schools were founded with a civic mission, and teaching history and social studies requires no justification other than a civic one. I suppose I agree with this, but I’m a practical person who just happens to hold a philosophy Ph.D. I see an enormous practical opportunity here for people who are concerned about the future of our democracy.

Policymakers want kids to read. They measure reading with the NAEP reading assessment (which I believe to be a good instrument). Students will score at “proficient” levels on the NAEP only if they learn to comprehend historical and social texts. So we’d better invest time and effort in teaching history and social studies. As a crucial side-effect, we will produce more capable political and civic agents for the future.

(On the shuttle to New York): I gave a speech this morning to the state directors of Youth for Justice programs. These are federally-funded initiatives to teach young people about the law, through courses, classroom visits by lawyers and judges, and youth courts?among other methods. I spoke about civic education. I hesitate to blog about my comments, because we are in the middle of an intense presidential campaign, terror and war are all around us, and I?m sure that many readers will click right past a blog entry about ?civic ed.? But maybe this is a good time to remind ourselves that our Republic will endure, no matter who wins the presidency, and we need to get on with the perpetual work of preparing the next generation. Possibly the election is more important than civic education (or possibly it isn?t); but in any case I would rather discuss and try to make positive change in a limited domain, rather than play the role of a tense and horrified spectator of national politics.

So, in my speech, I began by offering a personal definition of ?civic learning.? This is a phrase that, according to our recent focus group research, is more politically palatable than ?civic education.? (The latter phrase connotes boring lectures about ?how a bill becomes a law.?) In any case, ?learning? is the point; formal instruction is just one opportunity to learn.

In my view, ?civic learning? means learning to work together on common problems, whether through government, private voluntary associations, or even informal networks such as those that develop in neighborhoods. It may seem communitarian or statist to emphasize the importance of working together. Not so. Even libertarians, the staunchest defenders of individual liberty and uncoordinated private behavior, must value civic learning. That is because:

Progressives favor civic learning for somewhat different reasons, but there is a lot of overlap. (Progressives also need people to solve most problems through voluntary action, because government can only do so much.) And all sides should want there to be an informed, thoughtful, public-spirited debate about how best to address public problems: through the state, market competition, or voluntary collaboration.

Civic learning should build:

It is not in individuals? self-interest to develop these attributes, nor do they come naturally. For example, many of the skills needed for working together in groups are counter-intuitive and must be learned through experience or as a result of deliberate instruction. This is why associations have always taught each rising generation civic skills. Given the weaker associations we have today, we need better civic learning in schools.

Today I was named to the Board of Streetlaw, Inc., a nonprofit that produces the nation’s most popular high school textbook for “law-related education,” conducts an annual teacher’s institute at the Supreme Court, supports youth courts (in which adolescents actually sentence their peers), and runs various international programs, among many other services. Streetlaw is 32 years old and is one of the important independent associations that provide materials and training for civic education. (The Center for Civic Education, the Constitutional Rights Foundation, and the Bill of Rights Institute are other examples.) In general, there is no shortage of good curricula, textbooks, electronic simulations, program guides, and other materials. The bigger challenges are getting those materials used in schools and providing teachers with adequate training and support to use them.

I chair the Steering Committee of the Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools. Today the Campaign announced that we are making “six $150,000 grants to promote civic learning in the public schools of Colorado, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.” The press release explains:

The Campaign is a major national initiative to renew and restore a core purpose of public education ? preparing America?s young people to be informed and active citizens in our democracy. It is funded by Carnegie Corporation of New York and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and managed by the Council for Excellence in Government in partnership with the Academy for Educational Development. The Campaign endorses a comprehensive approach to civic learning, with schools not only being places where young people acquire knowledge but where they also are exposed to all facets of citizenship through experiential activities that instill civic knowledge, skill, and behavior.

The grants were awarded through a rigorous national competition, with the six winning coalitions selected from 36 state proposals. Each grant covers a two-year period beginning in November and will help support the work of state-level coalitions organized to advance the cause of civic learning.

?This is a milestone for a Campaign that?s only six months old,? David Skaggs, Executive Director of the Campaign and former Congressman from Colorado, said in announcing the grants. ?Over the next two years we expect these state coalitions to show what can be done to restore civic learning to a central place in our schools.? …

The Campaign?s work is grounded in the Civic Mission of Schools report and is guided by a Steering Committee composed of representatives from some 40 national organizations active in the field. These organizations have a variety of missions and emphases but are working collaboratively to develop a richer, comprehensive approach to civic learning.