{"id":17156,"date":"2016-07-14T08:25:47","date_gmt":"2016-07-14T12:25:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=17156"},"modified":"2016-07-14T08:26:32","modified_gmt":"2016-07-14T12:26:32","slug":"progress-on-civics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=17156","title":{"rendered":"progress on civics"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m back from a very inspiring meeting of civic activists, civic educators, and students\u00a0in the\u00a0White House. It was convened by the Domestic Policy Council along with Civic Nation<\/a> and the Beeck Center, with support from Tisch College<\/a> and o\"CnQrgM6XgAAz4-0\"thers. Committed and skillful\u00a0teachers and students attended from selected schools across the country. These students are not just learning about civic engagement, practicing to be citizens, or developing civic skills. They are at the forefront, right now, of addressing the most\u00a0serious issues in their communities. We\u00a0need them, and many more like them, to govern the republic better than it has been governed and to achieve justice that has eluded us so far.<\/p>\n

We learned that\u00a0US Secretary of Education John King is sending a “letter of guidance” to all state education agencies about new federal support for the humanities as part of the “well-rounded” education mandate of the Every Student Succeeds Act. As a humanities person,<\/a> I am glad about that direction, and as a civics advocate, I’m pleased\u00a0that civics is included among the humanities.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The US Department of Education has also made civics a core component of the Department’s “Blue Ribbon Schools<\/a>” program, which recognizes excellence.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile,\u00a0the House\u00a0Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor\/HHS and Education recently passed the\u00a02017 appropriations bill, which\u00a0includes\u00a0the first funding for\u00a0civics and American History in years. The appropriation\u00a0includes $6.5 million for competitive grants\u00a0to improve\u00a0<\/span>instruction in American history, civics, and geography, particularly for schools in under-served rural and urban communities. It also includes nearly $2 million for\u00a0<\/span>American History and Civics Academies: professional development opportunities for teachers of these disciplines. For now, it’s just a\u00a0House appropriations bill, but it’s an important step toward actual dollars for civics.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m back from a very inspiring meeting of civic activists, civic educators, and students\u00a0in the\u00a0White House. It was convened by the Domestic Policy Council along with Civic Nation and the Beeck Center, with support from Tisch College and others. Committed and skillful\u00a0teachers and students attended from selected schools across the country. These students are not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advocating-civic-education","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17156"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17160,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17156\/revisions\/17160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}