5 min read

Why Not Civics?

Why Not Civics?

Ready for some good news?

According to the 2021 Annenberg Constitution Day Civics Survey the number of U.S. adults who correctly named all three branches of government increased to 56%, the highest since the survey began in 2006 and more respondents named most of the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment – and three-quarters (74%) cited freedom of speech.  Additional analysis determined that:

“…taking a high school civics class continues to be associated with correct answers to civics knowledge questions, including knowledge of the three branches; knowledge of First Amendment rights; the term of a senator and representative; the meaning of a 5-4 Supreme Court decision; the Supreme Court having the final say on the constitutionality of the president’s actions; and knowing that Facebook is not covered by the First Amendment.”

In 2021, nearly 6 in 10 (59%) respondents said they had taken a civics course in high  school that focused on the Constitution or judicial system, about the same as in previous years. Half (48%) said they had taken a college course that focused on the U.S. system of government and the Constitution, more than in 2019 (38%).

Good news, right?

Observers outside of the world of social studies might see these findings as encouraging since any increase in the public’s knowledge and understanding of civics is welcome, but can we be satisfied with only half of the respondents knowing that the United States government has 3 branches? And why is it that only 6 in 10 respondents has taken a high school civics course? Shouldn’t that be a graduation requirement in every state?

Additionally, the 2018 civics results from the Nation’s Report Card are lackluster. The overall score dropped one point, declining from 154 points in 2014 to 153 points in 2018. Though this change is not statistically significant, it reverses a streak of modest improvement since 2006. Also, the percentage of students performing at or above the proficient level in civics remains low: Less than a quarter of students demonstrated solid academic performance and competency in civics and government based on NAEP standards. Sadly, the federal government has largely abandoned civics, spending $54 per student per year on STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education and only 5 cents on civics.

Given the amount of traditional media exposure to politics and world events, and the explosion of social media participation in political discussions along with exposure from the entertainment world (how many Americans even heard about the Federalist Papers before the Broadway musical Hamilton?) it is quite possible that too many Americans have learned about world issues and civics simply by osmosis. Additionally, what is concerning to many of us is the question of how accurate and how deep the public’s understanding of these concepts and issues is and how that understanding fuels that same public’s response to local, state, and national events.

So, maybe that “good news” isn’t as good as we first thought. As we have seen from the emotional and in some instances physical chaos that has surfaced in the past few years as a reaction to societal events, we must wonder what is causing the turmoil. Some pundits blame outside agitators, others cite political extremism. I see it as much more basic. Having a cursory knowledge of basic civics principles is a start. Learning to recite the 3 branches of government is great if your only goal is to pass the United States Citizenship Test. However, being able to conceptualize how each of the branches is like a symbiotic organism unable to function effectively without the other two requires a much deeper understanding of how our government works. Where does that understanding originate? How do we get students to take those basics facts about civics and use them to inform their thinking about societal events and reactions to those events? More importantly, how do we transform classrooms into places where students can become architects of their own thinking.

Having visited numerous middle and high school civics classes as part of my job in a former life I can attest that too many of those classes were exercises in rote instruction and subsequent student boredom. Too often the teacher takes on the role of “sage on the stage”, spewing out fact, after endless fact without allowing students to explore the soft underbelly of how and why a specific principle or political structure exists, supports and intersects with others. In some future post we will explore some ideas on how we can energize instruction. However, for now, I’d like to go a little deeper into when and how students should begin learning civics.

Elementary school. Is civics, via social studies, being taught in the nation’s elementary classrooms? And if it is, what is being taught and what does that instruction look like? Most of my professional career was devoted to the world of elementary social studies. Everyone in the education universe knows that elementary teachers are the utility players of the instructional world. Just like the utility baseball player can masterfully field any position on the team, the elementary teacher can teach any and all disciplines. They have to. And the really good ones can do it masterfully. For most of them, they do this with little help from pre-service preparation in content areas not named reading and math. It is appalling to this writer that many universities that offer teacher education degrees do not require classes in social studies instruction.

If elementary teachers want to further their knowledge of social studies content and the accompanying pedagogy, they must seek out workshops, seminars and external resources on their own. While this is not an acceptable situation, it does signal a willingness of some school districts to include social studies curriculum and instruction in their classrooms. Tragically, many districts do not require social studies to be taught in their schools and in some cases it is actually not allowed in order to enable enhanced time for reading and math instruction. In addition to denying teachers the opportunity to provide the foundation for future civics learning, what message does this send? To me, the message is that civics (via social studies) is not important. Educators have a saying, “if it is not tested, it is not taught”. It seems to me that by extension, “if it is deemed unimportant, it will not be taught and if it is not taught, ignorance follows”.

To me, the bottom line is that civics instruction is important and important things need to be both recognized and pursued. Simply shaking our heads and ruing the diminishment of this content cannot be accepted.

Revisiting our opening question, why not civics?, there might finally be some good news. There are people who have begun to notice and are speaking out.

Shawn Healy, an executive with iCivics,  recently stated, “Things are not going well in our democracy, and civics can heal some of these divides.” While we are not proposing that all of societal ills can be cured by the teaching of civics, we do maintain that having an understanding of our core civic foundation can help us tackle contemporary divisions in our society. Just as research scientists need to first learn the origins and composition of new and deadly diseases before they can find a cure, citizens must learn the history and foundation of their government in order to intelligently tackle the inevitable problems and divisions that arise.

In a recent posting in the Washington Examiner, David Davenport, research fellow at the Hoover Institution and a senior fellow at the Ashbrook Center, wrote:

"What we need is to require and teach more civics. Instead of just a single course in high school, which is the low bar set in most states, we need civics to be taught from kindergarten throughout the grades, building a layer cake of civic knowledge, culminating with a full-year course in high school.... What America needs most in civic education is to require more of it to be taught from grades K-12."

So instead of asking, Why Not Civics?, let’s say, Hail Civics, and let's do it now!

The image for this article was used in accordance with the Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0) license.  The original author is Ed Schipul and the original image can be located at https://www.flickr.com/photos/16638697@N00/4513729974