Keeping Our American Democracy through K–12 Civic Education

At September’s Thursday with the League, Michelle Herczog, EdD, Division of Curriculum and Instructional Services, L.A. County, began her talk by making several key points about K–12 education:

• Educating for diversity should begin in kindergarten and should be a concern at the local, state, and federal levels.
• News literacy and online literacy are key to supporting democracy.
• There have been no significant changes in civic education since 2010.
• California requires a class in government only in the twelfth grade.
• Currently, the federal budget per pupil for civic education is $0.05; for STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) it is $54.00.

Schools face challenges of competing priorities and initiatives for time and resources, along with a variety of misperceptions of what high-quality “civic learning” is and is not. Studies done by the RAND Corporation (identifying the most important priorities in teaching) and the Heritage Foundation (asking “What do parents want?”) involving teachers, parents, community members, and students have refuted the concern that civic education is an attempt to brainwash students and introduce inaccurate information.

Educating for American Democracy (EAD)

The EAD initiative was a diverse collaboration among over 300 academics, historians, political scientists, K–12 educators, district and state administrators, civics providers, students, and others from across the country. This collaboration included principal investigators, an executive committee, a steering committee (of which Herczog was a member), six task forces (on American history, content curation, implementation, K–5, pedagogy for constitutional democracy, and political science and civics), a C# working group, a state guidance working group, an advisory council, and consultants, staff, and stakeholder listen-session hosts and participants.

The online program provides a downloadable Roadmap to Educating for American Democracy for K–12 history and civic education. The Roadmap provides guidance and resources to support high-quality history and civic education. It is not a series of facts but questions that promote depth of learning and critical thinking. There are seven themes, which map out the disciplinary, skills, and dispositional learning needed to support healthy civic education. These themes are followed by five design challenges, which span the seven themes and describe some of the dilemmas education will encounter. Each element offers open-ended questions leading to inquiry and reflection. Herczog asked that the League help introduce the civic knowledge and skills promoted by this program to appropriate agencies and policymakers.

California’s Civic Education Initiatives

The last section of Herczog’s presentation was a review of the various programs and resources for civic education that exist in California. She started with an overview of the History–Social Science Framework for California Public Schools, K–12, which focuses on grade-level content and was adopted by the California Department of Education in 2016. She followed this overview with a look at several other state-sponsored programs: the State Seal of Civic Engagement, which is added to the diplomas of students who meet defined criteria; the Civic Learning Initiative, originated by Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye to revitalize civic learning by connecting the judiciary with teachers and classrooms; Civic Learning Awards, which spotlight programs and people; and Judges in the Classroom.

The Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE) sponsors the California Democracy School Project, designed to institutionalize high-quality civic learning practices across one or more grade levels. In California Democracy Schools, all members of the student body ask questions about an issue, study pros and cons, and become familiar with all points of view through their dialogue. Currently, thirty-three California schools are recognized as California Democracy Schools—the majority of them in the Anaheim Union High School District, where the district superintendent made it a priority.

Dr. Herczog ended with the admonition that with these forms of civic engagement, the teacher’s role shifts to that of a facilitator of inquiry and discussion, and to be really successful, LACOE provides free professional development for those instructional skills. Of utmost importance is the need to have high-quality discussions in the classroom. District leaders, teachers, and students need to discuss the importance of the strategies, and the classroom must be representative of the students’ community and mirror their experiences. Schools must support student participation in their school boards as active and engaged members.

Dr. Herczog’s full presentation is now available online at the LWV-PA website by scrolling down and clicking on the YouTube tab on the left-hand side of the screen. Watch! You will learn much that will contribute to the civic education of the K–12 kids in your life.

—Gail Rolf and Hannah MacLaren, Education Committee