{"id":19959,"date":"2018-05-16T13:54:11","date_gmt":"2018-05-16T17:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=19959"},"modified":"2018-05-16T13:54:11","modified_gmt":"2018-05-16T17:54:11","slug":"support-civics-in-massachusetts-civicsforma-macivicsforall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=19959","title":{"rendered":"support civics in Massachusetts #CivicsforMA #MAcivicsforall"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Right now is a &#8220;virtual advocacy day&#8221; for Massachusetts S.2375, &#8220;an act to promote and enhance civic engagement. I&#8217;m doing my bit by blogging in support of the law&#8211;which will also need an adequate appropriation. The bill would:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Require that all public schools teach American history and civics education in accordance\u00a0with the History and Social Science Curriculum Framework.<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0Establish a \u201cCivics Project Fund,\u201d which shall be used by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) to implement the various requirements of the bill\u00a0(including offering professional development and developing model curriculum). The fund\u00a0will consist of appropriations and donated funds.<\/li>\n<li>Mandate that every student in the Massachusetts public school system have the<br \/>\nopportunity to participate in at least 2 student-led civics projects, at least one of which<br \/>\nwould be completed after 8th grade and would be a graduation requirement. Projects may be individual, small group, class-wide, or as part of required coursework.<\/li>\n<li>Allow DESE, subject to resources, to establish regional civics councils to monitor and<br \/>\nprovide resources for civics education implementation throughout the commonwealth.<br \/>\nDESE may also hold annual conventions for such regional councils to meet and assess<br \/>\nthe state of civics education, share best practices, and make recommendations to the<br \/>\nBoard of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE).<\/li>\n<li>Require DESE, subject to resources, to create tools aligned with the History and Social<br \/>\nSciences Curriculum Framework to support districts in implementation .<\/li>\n<li>Require DESE, subject to resources, to establish the \u201cEdward Moore Kennedy and Edward\u00a0William Brooke III Civics Challenge,\u201d which shall be available to all eighth-grade public\u00a0school students. Student participants will present civics projects for evaluation and recognition.<\/li>\n<li>Direct the Secretary of the Commonwealth to establish a \u201cHigh School Voter Challenge\u201d in\u00a0which every public high school may nominate one or more students to serve as voter outreach coordinators. Designated \u201chigh school voter challenge weeks\u201d will be used to\u00a0hold voter registration drives for students who are eligible to register or pre-register to\u00a0vote. The Secretary will also be responsible for disseminating information to cities and\u00a0towns to promote youth membership on municipal boards, committees and commissions.<\/li>\n<li>Require BESE to provide opportunities for educators to receive professional development.<\/li>\n<li>Require DESE to convene a commission to develop a proposal for the establishment of a\u00a0civic education and public service program for Massachusetts youth.<\/li>\n<li>Require DESE to conduct a study on the implementation of the act.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>See also:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=19709\" rel=\"bookmark\">the first \u201ccivic ed\u201d bill: 1642<\/a>;\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=19665\" rel=\"bookmark\">my exchange with Beth Rubin about policy for civics<\/a>; and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=19008\" rel=\"bookmark\">new overview of civic education<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Right now is a &#8220;virtual advocacy day&#8221; for Massachusetts S.2375, &#8220;an act to promote and enhance civic engagement. I&#8217;m doing my bit by blogging in support of the law&#8211;which will also need an adequate appropriation. The bill would: Require that all public schools teach American history and civics education in accordance\u00a0with the History and Social [&hellip;]<\/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],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advocating-civic-education"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19959","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=19959"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19959\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19961,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19959\/revisions\/19961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}