Sarah Garland has a good piece in The Hechinger Report on whether schools–and specifically, civic educators–can combat political extremism. She presents the evidence as mixed, and no one thinks that schools are equipped to solve that problem all by themselves.

Meanwhile Weinschenk & Dawes have a new article that re-analyzes longitudinal data from US students and finds that civic education does not boost voter turnout, once other factors are considered.*

My response is the same in both cases. Thousands of dedicated civic educators are doing their best in classrooms and community settings. However, as a society, we have not invested in civics. We have not put much public or private money into it, or built it into policy reforms, or required kids to spend much time on it, or emphasized it when educating future teachers, or even conveyed its importance to most of our youth.

As a result, the aggregate effects from taking a civics course are not likely to be large. Program evaluations and studies of specific classrooms sometimes find big impacts (albeit in the short term, since few evaluations involve long-term follow-up), but the effects of typical courses are limited.

If people take away the conclusion that civics doesn’t work, that will be a self-fulfilling prophesy. (And it would reflect a misunderstanding of the relationship between data–which always describes the past–and envisioning the future.) But it is true that we must invest considerably more in civics to get the results we need.

*Weinschenk, A., & Dawes, C. (2021). Civic Education in High School and Voter Turnout in Adulthood. British Journal of Political Science, 1-15. doi:10.1017/S0007123420000435. See also The Educating for Democracy Act of 2020.

The SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University has published three cases about the choices and dilemmas that confront groups of people who strive to make social change. These are like business-school cases: they are factual narratives that conclude with moments of choice that are meant to be discussed in groups, whether in high school, college, or in movements and organizations.

I am proud to have played a role in the project from the start. We felt that cases are really useful for teaching and professional development, but most actual cases provided by business schools, schools of public policy, and wonderful initiatives like The Pluralism Project and Justice in Schools focus on individual protagonists. We were interested in voluntary groups that must deliberate before they can choose. David Moss’s excellent Case Method Project does some of what we intended, but its focus is on high schools and American history, whereas we wanted to serve social movements with some current examples.

These are free, and we would love to know how they work in various settings.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott

• PETER LEVINE, VISITING FELLOW

What objectives, targets, strategies, demands, and rhetoric should a nascent social movement choose as it confronts an entrenched system of white supremacy? How should it make decisions?

The Montgomery, Alabama, Bus Boycott of 1955–1956 is a classic example of a social movement episode that accomplished its immediate goals despite severe obstacles. It catapulted the 26-year-old Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. into international prominence and launched similar episodes in many American cities across the South and then also the North. By investigating their situation and choices, you can develop skills and insights to use as activists today.

The ISAIAH Trash Referendum

• PETER LEVINE, VISITING FELLOW
• LIZ MCKENNA, POSTDOCTORAL SCHOLAR

Should a faith-based organization take on an issue not of its choosing? Can relational organizing help its leadership support a new mayor while also engaging their base and holding their coalition together?

This is a case study about an organization in Minnesota called ISAIAH, a faith-based organization that works to expand the power and influence of people who have often been overlooked, especially poor people and people of color.

This case examines what happened when, to support a new mayor with whom the organization wanted to work,  ISAIAH became involved in a divisive issue—not of its own choosing—that revolved around garbage. ISAIAH faced at least three choices: 1) stay out of the fight over garbage; 2) use mobilizing techniques to help the mayor win the garbage issue; or 3) use relational organizing to enter into a power relationship with the mayor in the garbage fight—even though most of the people in ISAIAH’s networks didn’t care much about the issue.

The AMOS Project and the Campaign for Universal Preschool

• LIZ MCKENNA, POSTDOCTORAL SCHOLAR
• HAHRIE HAN, INAUGURAL DIRECTOR, SNF AGORA INSTITUTE & PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, KSAS

Can faith-based organizers garner enough support to win universal preschool in a racially divided city? How should a grassroots group manage a disagreement with its own powerful coalition partners?

This case study is about the AMOS Project, an organization in Cincinnati, Ohio, and its grassroots efforts to pass legislation that would provide preschool education for most of the city’s children. AMOS’s grassroots efforts increased the political pressure to pay for the program, but at one point, the whole effort seemed likely to fall apart. How could a grassroots network of congregations manage a disagreement with allies in the business community and achieve its goals?

Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) and Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) have introduced the Educating for Democracy Act of 2020. It would significantly increase federal investment in civic and history education. It is the Senate companion to the U.S. House version of the Educating for Democracy Act that was introduced on September 17th by Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and Congressman Tom Cole (R-OK). 

Note those D’s and R’s–this is bipartisan legislation with support from influential Members on both sides of the aisle.

The Act would authorize $1 billion in federal investment in civic and history education, including research, innovation and teacher professional development. Funds would go to state and local education agencies to strengthen and improve civic and history education; to non-profit entities to develop or expand access to curricula, instructional models, and other programs; and to colleges and universities to educate future elementary and secondary school teachers. The bill would also require the National Assessments of Educational Progress (NAEPs) in civic and history education to be conducted every two years at grades 4, 8 and 12, with state level results made publicly available so that states can be tracked and assessed.

The full bill summary is available here. 

Senators Coons and Cornyn and Representatives DeLauro and Cole will reintroduce this legislation in the new congress in January, but it is important to persuade U.S. Senators to co-sponsor the bill now. Please be in touch with your own Senators.

Imagine young Americans watching last night’s debate. Try telling yourself that we have a special problem with youth. Try telling yourself that young people’s understanding of the system, commitment to democracy, or civic and personal virtues represent particular deficits.

Young Americans do urgently need and deserve more and better civic education–meaning not only courses and curricula by that name, but a whole k-12 education that prepares them to be active and responsible citizens. This need is critical.

But the reason is not a decline in civic education since Donald Trump’s youth (or mine), nor a decline in young people’s knowledge, skills, and virtues. The evidence about how courses and requirements have changed over time is mixed and ambiguous, but we never offered much civic education. Outcome measures such as the NAEP Civics Assessment are remarkably flat. Certainly, American history is presented much better now than in my day, in part due to mountains of valuable scholarship.

Improving civics is an urgent need not because it used to be better but because older people have handed today’s youth a republic in disastrous condition. The fiasco of the debate serves as an apt metaphor for the whole system. One can assign most, or even almost all, of the blame for last night to Donald J. Trump; nevertheless, the debate encapsulates our whole era.

Civic education is not well positioned to address some aspects of the problem. For instance, presidential overreach is on Suzanne Mettler’s and Robert C. Lieberman’s list of Four Threats, but it is not something that civics can directly fix; nor is gerrymandering; nor is income inequality. Trump himself is a threat (according to me), and he must be dealt with at the polls and then perhaps in the courtroom, not in the classroom.

However, on their list are two problems that civic education can address: hyper-polarization and conflicts over who belongs in the citizenry. Students can learn to deliberate with people who disagree and can learn to understand, appreciate and include all their fellow Americans. Some would add misinformation as yet another threat, and it is also something that civics addresses.

Saving the republic is not the only reason to teach American history, government, and civics. These are intrinsically interesting and worthy topics. Learning about them enriches the mind and soul. And teaching social studies demonstrably improves reading scores. But saving the republic is a pretty good reason to focus on civics, now.