Above The Fold
Guest Column
Good Citizenship
By David Skaggs
If habits of the mind can be established early, they will hold. That’s why Madison Avenue wants to develop brand loyalty as early in a consumer’s life as possible. I pray that Newspaper In Education will have the greatest possible success instilling in young minds a curiosity and an ability to stay informed about the greater world.
\\We well know that democracy depends on both knowledge and learned behavior (skills and attitude). We are not hard-wired with civic knowledge or behavior – witness the fact that the United States spends millions every year to promote democracy abroad and to train citizens and parliamentarians in its essential practices.
My favorite observation by John Dewey captures this nicely: “Democracy must be reborn in every generation, and education is its midwife.”
CIVIC ILLITERACY
How is the United States doing with respect to civic literacy, both for students and adults?
In 2004, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation conducted its First Amendment survey of 100,000 high school students. The study indicated that First Amendment values can be taught successfully. The more students are exposed to news media and to the First Amendment, the greater their understanding.
But the survey also revealed that in practice, constitutional basics are not being taught successfully. Three-quarters of the students surveyed thought flag burning to be illegal. And nearly half believed government can censor the Internet. Many did not think newspapers should be allowed to publish freely without government censorship.
The Knight survey also found that most school administrators said they would like to expand student media, but lack financial resources to support it. Of the high schools not offering student newspapers, 40 percent had eliminated them in the past five years. Ironically, most of those educators still said it is important for all students to learn some journalism skills.
What about the adult population? The American Bar Association surveyed 1,000 adults in 2005. The ABA was, and is, worried about public understanding of and support for the fundamental pillars of the rule of law – an independent judiciary, separation of powers, checks and balances.
A little more than half – 55 percent – correctly identified the three branches of government. Twenty-two percent thought they were Republican, Democrat and Independent. Another 16 percent thought the answer was local, state and federal.
Less than half of the sample – 48 percent – knew the meaning of separation of powers. Nevertheless, nearly two-thirds understood the concept of checks and balances.
It’s easy to blame the victim here. But all of this suggests that we’re not teaching our children what they need to know to function intelligently as citizens in our democracy.
CIVIC ED FACTS
Let me cite some quick civic education facts, courtesy of the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at the University of Maryland.
What are students learning, or at least what they are being taught?
Between 1988 and 1998, the proportion of fourth-graders taking social studies daily fell from 49 percent to 39 percent.
However, in 1999 79 percent of ninth-graders reported studying the Constitution. Fifty-two percent of sixth-graders said they took a course that required them to follow government issues.
Yet in 1998, nearly one-third of high school seniors were found to lack a basic understanding of how U.S. government works, while three-fourths of students scored at “basic” or “below basic” on the 1998 National Assessment of Educational Progress civics assessment.
Nine out of 10 Americans say it is important for high schools to teach civics and government. Our survey data show that what we call “civic learning” is the second most important goal people have for schools, after basic subject matter knowledge and ahead of college or career preparation.
People don’t think schools are doing well. They say they would support additional resources for better education in democracy and would back the policymakers who would push for those resources.
Our young people are well aware of their own lack of preparation. Two-thirds of young adults ages 18 to 25 support the idea of mandatory civics classes in high school and middle school. Still, while they believe in the value of civic education and think they should be required to study it more, few choose to take such classes on their own.
Young people who have taken civics classes are 23 percentage points more likely to believe they are responsible for making things better for society, and 14 percentage points more likely to vote.
Attention to news by high school students correlates positively with their knowledge and understanding of politics, their participation in school government and in community service, and their sense of political efficacy. Students who participate in classroom discussions about current issues have a greater interest in politics, improved critical thinking and communication skills, more civic knowledge and greater interest in discussing public affairs outside of school.
The civic mission of schools and the civic mission of newspapers are joined at the hip. Correlations between political engagement, civic learning and literacy, and reading and understanding the news are clear, although the causal relationships seem more difficult to prove.
MISSION POSSIBLE
The Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools is a national effort with the goal of strengthening schools’ capacity, commitment and performance in educating young people as citizens of our democracy.
We think civic learning and practice are crucial not just for a healthy democracy, but for a healthy society whose success in a competitive world depends on good thinkers, workers, leaders and followers.
The campaign pursues its goal by improving public policy in support of civic learning in selected states, by increasing federal support for civic learning, by convincing opinion leaders of the need to expand civic learning, and by making high-quality civic learning materials accessible and helping teachers to use them. The objective is for schools to renew and embrace their civic mission to educate students in democracy.
Over the last generation, we seem to have lost sight of the civic mission of schools. Traditional civic learning has gradually – and over time, dramatically – diminished. This trend is particularly troubling because schools are the primary institutions in every community that prepares students for civic and political participation.
Several factors explain the decline. Testing under the No Child Left Behind Act is far from the entire story. The incentive structure in most public education systems does not value civic learning. Despite opinion surveys showing broad public support for the civic mission of schools, there is no organized constituency in most places to insist that schools educate students for active and engaged citizenship.
The campaign believes in appropriate accountability and assessment requirements. However, we also recognize that pressures from No Child Left Behind and its testing regime have been both a cause and an excuse for not addressing the civic preparation deficit in the schools. Civic learning is simply being crowded out – or not let back in – especially in many poor urban and rural school districts where pressure to meet adequate yearly progress under NCLB is greatest.
The campaign will continue to act as a catalyst to achieve more and better civic learning in our schools, addressing the issue in many states and districts across the nation. Grants from the campaign support selected state campaigns that are pursuing policy change on behalf of civic learning at state and local levels.
At the national level, the campaign expects to improve the policy climate and support for civic learning in several concrete ways. These include:
- Congressional support to ensure that federal requirements and expectations recognize and leave space for civic learning when the No Child Left Behind Act is reauthorized;
- Continued refinement of the National Assessments of Educational Progress in civics and history;
- Heightened appreciation in Congress for the civic mission of schools;
- Communications and public affairs efforts to help opinion leaders understand the issue and to heighten public awareness of the problem, and of the consequences for democracy if civic learning is not restored.
To support this effort, the campaign will continue to generate useful products to support effective classroom practice. Principal among these is a professionally vetted, educational resources database (under “Resources & Strategies” at www.civicmissionofschools.org). It includes civic learning practice examples and programs; profiles of schools and districts that recognize their civic mission; professional development models; and related civic-learning materials. The database is searchable by state, grade level and civic learning approach.
I realize that there is a separation of power internally at most newspapers between and among news divisions, editorial departments and NIE. However, you do talk with your colleagues, and so I offer a couple of ideas on things your newspapers might consider doing that would advance our common purpose in supporting the civic mission of schools.
- The National Conference of State Legislators has a terrific “back to school” program that gets state legislators into the classroom to talk about what goes on the legislature. Coverage in your papers will help win allies to your cause.
- Editorial board candidate interviews during election season could include questions about candidates’ positions on the civic mission of schools, and whether they will support improved civic learning in schools.
- You may become an ally with the campaign’s 18 state teams or the 33 state teams of the Alliance for Representative Democracy (www.representativedemocracy.org) in the rest of the country. Again, newspaper coverage will help them get the policy changes enacted that will aid in civic literacy and newspaper reading.
- Join the effort for inclusion of civic learning (social studies, history, geography, law, government, civics) in the No Child Left Behind reauthorization, backed up with appropriate accountability provisions and assessment tools.
Former U.S. Rep. David Skaggs is national director of the Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools. He can be reached at dskaggs@excelgov.org. 
