Plans to Get Students Hooked on Civics

The U.S. Department of Education is stepping up its efforts to improve civic education and engagement at all levels, unveiling a multi-pronged plan to spur schools to elevate instruction in the field and encourage public service.

On Tuesday, Education Secretary Arne Duncan and other administration officials and education leaders gathered at the White House for an event focusing on promoting civic awareness and engagement, taking the occasion to release a major report outlining the department's strategy.

The report, "Civic Learning and Engagement in Democracy: A Road Map and Call to Action," endorses a set of broad-ranging priorities for civic engagement initially developed by the National Task Force on Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement and the American Commonwealth Partnership, a consortium of schools, colleges and other stakeholders focused on civic education.

Those goals stress that civic learning should be treated as a core subject area in curricula from elementary to postsecondary education, calling for deeper partnerships between schools and college campuses and their surrounding communities.

The necessity of a civic education

The report emphasizes that an expanded role for civic education need not come at the expense of traditional areas of focus such as science, math, reading and writing, dismissing the notion that "advancing civic learning and democratic engagement is a zero-sum proposition."

Instead, the authors argue that a heightened focus on civic learning is not only compatible with critical thinking and other core competencies of traditional curricula, but will be more critical than ever in shaping a globally competitive workforce for the 21st century. But to that end, they warn that schools and universities must dramatically rethink their approach to civic instruction, which educators have too often treated as an afterthought.

"[U]nfortunately, civic learning and democratic engagement are add-ons rather than essential parts of the core academic mission in too many schools and on too many college campuses today," the authors of the report wrote.

The new push comes in response to growing concerns that U.S. students are falling behind in the field of civic education, which is closely coupled with democratic participation. For instance, the 2010 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) report card for civics found that less than 30 percent of fourth graders, eighth graders and twelfth graders were proficient in the subject (27 percent, 22 percent and 24 percent, respectively), with significant achievement gaps falling along racial and ethnic fault lines.

Among high school seniors, NAEP has reported steady declines in civics proficiency from 2006 to 2010. In 2007, a survey of 172 democracies around the world ranked the United States 139th in voter participation.

Students taught citizenship

"Today's students are tomorrow's leaders, and giving them a strong foundation in civic values is critical to the vitality of America's democracy and economy in the 21st century," Duncan said in a statement. "This call to action is an opportunity to develop and improve civic learning as part of a well-rounded education so every student has a sense of citizenship."

The report calls on schools to conduct "civic audits" assessing their effectiveness in the field, and publish plans to improve outcomes for students and develop data-driven metrics to gauge effectiveness. The Education Department also signaled that it plans to direct federal funding toward the development of civic-minded public-private partnerships and encourage community-oriented work-study programs and public-service careers for college students and graduates. That initiative will include efforts to publicize the more favorable federal loan-forgiveness terms the Obama administration has put in place for graduates who pursue careers in public service.