my news habits are getting worse

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(National Airport) After a day with colleagues at the American Press Institute, I am reflecting on changes in my own habits of news consumption. A decade ago, I used to read almost the whole of the New York Times every day. That gave me one institutional perspective on the world–and I spent more time than I should have on ephemera. On the bright side, I daily explored a wide range of topics, from obituaries to human-interest stories, from tech to the arts. I still subscribe to the Times, but I find my attention span much shorter online; the temptation is always to click on something different. I tend to focus on a few developing stories–lately, the Israeli election, the temporary absence of Putin, and the congressional budget process–and obsessively read lots of largely repetitive news and opinion. I think sometimes I am just looking for a more positive angle on the same troubling story. I am not sure whether the total amount of time I spend/waste on daily news is more or less than it was in 2005, but I am pretty sure the total amount of daily learning is lower.

on requiring the federal citizenship test in high school

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I have an op-ed on FoxNews.com against the recent wave of state laws that require students to pass the US citizenship test. It begins:

Quick: how many amendments to the U.S. Constitution have been ratified?

The answer is 27. The question comes from the federal test required for new citizens. Arizona and North Dakota recently made passing that test a graduation requirement for all their high school students, and several other states are considering the idea.  I fear imposing this test will actually reduce the amount of civics our young people study and remember.

The federal citizenship test consists of 100 multiple-choice questions; individuals see a random sample of 10. The easiest way to prepare for it is to memorize the 100 right answers. When you see the key word “amendment,” you remember to choose “27.”

I argue against this test as a tool for improving civics. But the idea is well-intentioned and may do good if it prompts a discussion about what our kids should learn and how we should test them. Civics doesn’t get a lot of attention; those of us who try to raise its profile are rarely successful. This year’s debate about the citizenship test in high schools may have brought more visibility to the topic than anything that’s happened in all the years I’ve been involved with civics. In my Fox News piece, I ask readers to consider what a better assessment would look like. If legislators and other leaders ask themselves that question, we may see better policies–and then we should thank the proponents of the citizenship test for prompting this conversation.

the age of the strongman

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China: Xi Jinping is “a president who has ruthlessly centralised power while embarking on an ambitious project to revitalise Communist rule and to secure the party’s future. … One of his major themes is a war on ‘western values’, including a free press, democracy and the constitutional separation of powers, all of which he believes pose an insidious threat to one-party rule. … Xi considers himself the antithesis of the ‘weak man’ who turned out the light on the Soviet empire.”

India:  A “cult of personality is slowly building around” Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “No surprise, then, that he rules firmly. … Many fear that unchallenged by a weakened opposition, Mr Modi will help turn the world’s largest – and most diverse – democracy into a Hindu nationalist state. There’s trepidation over a lack of tolerance among many of Mr Modi’s supporters, particularly on social media, to any criticism.”

Russia: “The elevation of Mr Putin as a father of the nation, a man who may be elected in a nominal political process but is in fact apart from and above politics, is a symptom of Russia’s ‘deep demodernising trend’, according to Andrei Zorin, a historian at Oxford University.”

Turkey: Prime Minister Recep Tayyip “Erdogan’s achievements are now shadowed by his undeniable lurch toward autocracy. Over the last year, he has initiated a harsh crackdown against peaceful protesters, political opponents, and independent media outlets.”

This is a radically incomplete list, but it includes the leaders of countries with nearly 3 billion subjects and great international influence. How profoundly disappointing that the ascendant ideology of the 1930s should again confront us.

Of course, the momentum in the direction of macho, nationalist, centralizing authoritarianism is not unstoppable. This trend is of fairly short duration–so far–and could still be checked. The question is whether we can develop a sufficiently cohesive, energetic, optimistic, and truly global democratic movement to resist it.

See also: postcolonial reaction;  why is oligarchy everywhere? and why is oligarchy everywhere? (part 2).

states are implementing the C3 Civics Framework

[Cross-posted from the CIRCLE site] In 2013, the National Council for the Social Studies published the C3 Framework for the Social Studies. The C3 is not a prescriptive set of standards, but a guide for states as they revise their own standards and other regulations, frameworks, and laws that govern social studies. It is intended to make the social studies more coherent, more challenging, and better aligned with what citizens need to learn and do.

One of the most innovative features of the C3 is its culminating “dimension”: Taking Informed Action. I chaired the civics writing team of the C3, and the Framework was influenced by CIRCLE’s accumulated research on k-12 civics, going back to 2001. The civics standards are consistent with the recommendations of the Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools and its founding document, the Civic Mission of Schools report (organized by CIRCLE and Carnegie Corporation of New York in 2003). The “Taking Informed Action” dimension was also informed by the National Action Civics Collaborative, of which CIRCLE was a co-founder.

States and some large districts are now using the C3. Some refer to their process as “adoption,” but it always involves a great deal of customization to their circumstances and interests. For example:

  • Arkansas recently revised its social studies curriculum frameworks, which will be implemented in August 2015. The revision committee used the C3 Framework, among other sources, and the revised documents are all aligned to the C3 Framework.
  • Connecticut’s Board of Education adopted new social studies frameworks in February 2015, based on the C3.
  • The District of Columbia has revised its Scope and Sequence for K-12 social studies to incorporate indicators from the C3 Framework, has provided professional development aligned with the C3, is developing assessments that incorporate C3 outcomes, and has adjusted its Building Literacy in Social Studies (BLISS) program to explicitly incorporate elements of the C3 Framework.
  • Hawaii’s Department of Education is formally considering adopting the C3.
  • Illinois State Superintendent Christopher Koch began a process of updating the state’s history and social science standards in 2014 and asked for the social sciences to be guided by the C3. As Tom Chorneaureports, ”A big part of the revision in Illinois will focus on civics learning, as the standards task force organized by the superintendent will be led by the Illinois Civic Mission Coalition.”
  • In Kentucky, a writing team has been drafting Social Studies Standards for the Next Generation. They are drawing on the the C3 Framework, the Global Competence Matrix, and 21st Century Skills for Teaching and Learning, among other documents. They hope to present the results to the Kentucky Board of Education in April for consideration of implementation next school year.
  • Maryland has begun writing a new Maryland Social Studies Framework for pre-k-12 based on the C3 Framework.  Maryland is also using C3 in professional development.
  • New York State’s Board of Regents has adopted a new K-12 Social Studies Framework that draws explicitly on C3. New York also provides a C3 Toolkit helpful for people implementing at any level, from their classroom to a state.
  • North Carolina will not begin its regular revision of social studies standards until 2015-2016, but the state is using the C3 as a curriculum framework and has conducted professional development to help teachers use it.

As we have previously written, adoption of the C3 Framework is a positive step toward improving civic education in our schools. The lessons learned from its implementation and, eventually, its impact on students will inform criticalongoing debates about how to best educate informed and engaged youth.

how Millennials get news

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Here are some tidbits from How Millennials Get News: Inside the habits of America’s first digital generation, released today by the American Press Institute and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. The sample was 1,046 adults between the ages of 18 and 34.

  • 85% “Say keeping up with the news is at least somewhat important to them.”
  • Their three most common online activities are email, checking the weather or travel information, and “keeping up with what’s going on in the world,” which 68% do at least daily.
  • More than half (57%) say they followed the news to be informed citizens. Tied at 53% are two other reasons: finding the news entertaining and liking to talk to other people about the news. These recreational/social motivations must be considered when trying to expand the audience for news.
  • Of the news topics that they follow, national politics comes 9th (with 43% following it) and “city, town and neighborhood” comes 11th. At the top of the list are news about pop culture (66%), hobbies (61%) and traffic and weather (51%).
  • Most turn to professional news sources for serious topics, from national politics and local news to crime and health. For religion and faith and social issues, they go to social media.
  • 40% have a paid news subscription, and nearly 30% have a print newspaper subscription (if you combine people who subscribe themselves with those who benefit from someone else’s subscription).
  • About 36% have delved deeply recently into a hard news topic, such as national politics. When they do that, overwhelmingly they search the web for information. Only 7% go to Facebook and 4% to Wikipedia.
  • 70% say that they see opinions that both confirm and challenge their own views on social media. I don’t think we can tell whether they are seeing truly diverse views or only views that diverge in some respects from their own.
  • Those who are less active seekers of news are more likely to encounter diverse views. It may be that people who are most engaged with the news also tend to be ideological and go to trusted sources, in contrast to people who just “bump into the news” through social contacts. The latter, then, are more likely to see views that challenge their own. (This finding is consistent with the inverse relationship between diversity and engagement that we also see in the work of Diana Mutz, David Campbell, and Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg and me.)