{"id":20214,"date":"2018-08-01T17:07:33","date_gmt":"2018-08-01T21:07:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=20214"},"modified":"2018-08-01T17:08:40","modified_gmt":"2018-08-01T21:08:40","slug":"suing-for-better-civics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=20214","title":{"rendered":"suing for better civics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>(DCA) Robert Pondiscio for the <a href=\"https:\/\/edexcellence.net\/articles\/suing-for-civic-education#.W2IfYPFrXl0.twitter\">Fordham Institute<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Many of us who view ourselves as civic-education advocates spend lots of time writing\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/edexcellence.net\/articles\/how-civic-education-can-save-america\">earnest op-eds<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/edexcellence.net\/articles\/the-failure-of-civics-education\">columns<\/a>, attending conferences, and speaking on panels &#8230;\u00a0Collectively, we have spilled gallons of ink urging states, school districts, and teachers to return public education to its roots.<\/p>\n<p>Well, to hell with all that jawboning, says Michael Rebell, in effect. He\u2019s going to force the issue by making a federal case out of it. Literally.<\/p>\n<p>An attorney and Columbia professor, Rebell has been quietly working with a group of law school students to prepare a federal lawsuit to be filed next month, arguing that our public schools are not adequately preparing children for citizenship. &#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>Before you write this off as a quixotic quest or mere law school exercise, know that Rebell isn\u2019t just some lawyer, or even some professor.\u00a0In 1993, he led the landmark\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Campaign_for_Fiscal_Equity\">Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit<\/a>\u00a0against the State of New York and won &#8230;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I would add that Rebell&#8217;s new book, <a href=\"http:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=19883\">Flunking Democracy: Schools, Courts, and Civic Participation<\/a>\u00a0(University of Chicago Press, 2018) is a thoughtful, well-informed, and judicious overview of civics&#8211;valuable even if you aren&#8217;t interested in the lawsuit. The book also helpfully explains what would happen if the plaintiffs won. They wouldn&#8217;t ask courts to set education policy but to require a deliberative process (involving elected officials and others) that would make progress on civics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(DCA) Robert Pondiscio for the Fordham Institute: Many of us who view ourselves as civic-education advocates spend lots of time writing\u00a0earnest op-eds\u00a0and\u00a0columns, attending conferences, and speaking on panels &#8230;\u00a0Collectively, we have spilled gallons of ink urging states, school districts, and teachers to return public education to its roots. Well, to hell with all that jawboning, [&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":[4,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20214","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\/20214","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=20214"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20235,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20214\/revisions\/20235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}