SSEC Upcoming Conference Opportunity!

Posted on August 10, 2015 by stevemasy

Good afternoon, friends in Civics. I have been asked by our own colleagues Dr. Elizabeth Washington and Dr. Michael Berson to share the following conference opportunity with you. The Social Science Education Consortium is sponsoring an international conference in Berlin, and it may be an opportunity for you next summer to get some rather amazing content-oriented professional development. For more information, please see the notice below and/or contact Judi Moss, SSEC administrative assistant, via e-mail at anextrahand1@comcast.net.

The Preamble Challenge!!

Posted on August 6, 2015 by stevemasy

Good news! The Civics Renewal Network is sponsoring the Preamble Challenge again this year, and it is a great opportunity to show this state, this great nation, and the world what your kids know about one of the most important collection of words in the history of government.

In 2014, nearly 900 schools from around the country joined us in taking the Preamble Challenge to celebrate Constitution Day. Sign up your class or school here for Constitution Day 2015 (map below), and we’ll give you everything you need to host your own Preamble activity with our free Preamble Challenge Teacher Toolkit! This toolkit contains step-by-step instructions on how to put together your own Preamble Challenge at your school, library or community to celebrate Constitution Day, September 17! It provides activities, lessons and other ways to share the great work of your students and be part of this national celebration!

This is a great way to engage your kids with the Constitution and to show folks that yes, we DO do civics!!!! We ARE teaching these kids what it means to be a citizen!.

For more information on the Preamble Challenge, visit the Civic Renewal Network and register your school now!

Guest Post: The Constitutional Scholars Institute

Posted on August 6, 2015 by stevemasy

Recently, our colleague Mandy Arias, who teaches at Lee Middle in Orange County, headed north to the Constitutional Scholars Institute in Philadelphia. She was kind enough to provide us with a post that summarizes her experience. I encourage you to think about this opportunity for the future!

The Constitutional Scholars Institute was a wonderful experience made up of highly qualified staff and guest speakers who were very passionate and knowledgeable about Civics and the Constitution. This included lawyers, judges, authors, and even a former governor. All participates shed light on hot topics in our country today thorough multiple perspectives and techniques for teaching them in class.

The Rendell Center truly wanted to aid teachers with their knowledge of Civics along with pedagogical practices. This was done in an innovative manner since our discussions and interactions were with teachers from all across the United States. Something I had never experienced before. We were able to share multiple resources and lesson plan ideas with one another on a daily basis and share resources with one another via blackboard.

Having the opportunity to closely focus on the Constitution allowed all teachers to learn something new, even if they had felt as though they were experts before. I believe most of us truly enjoyed the experience of arguing the mock appellate court case in a federal court room. Using the lickert scale to place people in certain roles was a useful technique and one I will certainly use in the classroom. We also had the opportunity to be walked through the Constitution Center website and all its sources. This was very helpful especially if you enjoy using technology in the classroom. We the Civics Kids is just one of the many resources that were given to us that I know will be helpful in a Middle School classrooms. In the end, I left with more resources, experiences, and information then I could have imagined

The Institute also included some field studies. We visited historic sites and experienced events first hand. These ranged in content and format; from the liberty bell, to reenactments taking place in Independence Hall, to partaking in the audience of the 16th annual Supreme Court Review, to viewing one of the original copies of the Bill of Rights in person. Having these pictures and stories to aid to our classroom lectures are immeasurable.

Partaking in this institute was not only a helpful review but an experience I left feeling more enthusiastic and passionate about Civics. I became more knowledgable by having so much time to dedicate to the topic and I was renewed with inspiration and drive to do a wonderful job teaching Civics in your next school year. I also left with multiple contacts that will be helpful throughout my career.

– Mandy Arias

Thank you, Mandy, for sharing this with us!

Justifying Our Existence: Does Our Work Matter?

Posted on July 30, 2015 by stevemasy

As readers of this blog and supporters of the Florida Joint Center for Citizenship are no doubt aware, the past few months here at the FJCC/Lou Frey Institute have been a bit stressful. The Florida Legislature seems to have essentially decided that the state should not be in the business of funding professional development organizations, tools, or resources, and that anything of value can and should be paid for by the districts.

“It’s only valuable if it doesn’t cost anything, is the message,” Gaetz told the Times/Herald. “If yours is so valuable, why isn’t anybody interested in paying any money for it?”

While our own funding was saved at the last minute, thanks no doubt to the efforts of folks like you, we remain in a precarious position. In order to continue to be supported by the state, and not have to charge districts a great deal of money to support us, we have to start providing data to the legislature and to the governor’s office. Now, we do have some excellent data that we have provided them before. We know, for example, that usage of both our own site and the Escambia civics site, for which we provide a great deal of resources and support, is incredibly high. Figure 1 illustrates usage of the FJCC online resources. Figure 3 illustrates usage of the Escambia site. (Click on each image to enlarge it if you need to).

The usage of these resources is also spread across the state, as the two figures below illustrate:

So what does the data we have say?

More than 5,600 Florida teachers and district personnel, from every district in the state, maintain active accounts on the Institute’s website, providing them with access to professional development, instructional and assessment resources.

In FY 2014-15 to-date, more than 59,000 users of the Institute’s civics resources website have generated more than 170,000 work sessions as teachers have come to the site for support materials (Figure 1).
- Monthly utilization rates have grown exponentially in FY 2014-15 following the first administration of the Civics EOC in the spring of 2014. Further growth is anticipated in advance of the 2015 test administration date.

The Institute’s daily impact on teachers touches virtually all Florida school districts. Figure 2 shows the distribution of usage sessions by school districts to-date for the current fiscal year. Heaviest use is from the state’s more urban districts.
- Four of the state’s most rural districts are not making use of LFI/FJCC resources. We are currently coordinating with FLDOE’s outreach to lowest performing districts to address this issue.

In the five month period from September, 2014 through January, 2015, almost 40,000 student users accessed materials on the Civics Review Site in just under 120,000 sessions. (Figure 3). The general trend line is up and student access is expected to grow further in advance of the 2015 EOC administration.
The Student Review Site is serving the needs of students from virtually every district in the state (Figure 4). Use is most intense in the more urban areas of the state.
- Five of the most rural districts are not making use of the Student Review Sites. LFI/FJCC is currently coordinating with FLDOE’s outreach to lowest performing districts to address this issue.

This is good data, data that we are excited by and that we believe is making a difference. Civics scores increased this year, and we believe that we may have played a role in that increase. HOWEVER, the data that we have is not data that will impress the state legislature and the governor’s office. We need to directly connect our work to student EOC achievement scores, and in this we face a challenge. The state leadership does not want stories, though we have so many good stories that we can share and will share. They want hard numbers, or the stories that we do have will be nothing more than melancholy reminiscing. It is difficult, however. How do we separate out the noise that is inherent in this sort of data collection effort? After all, we are not the only civic education organization in Florida, nor are we the only resource that is being used. At the same time, we don’t always know just HOW the resources and PD we provided is being implemented in classrooms, schools, and districts. And, of course, the biggest problem we face is actually getting those numbers that we need. We must, essentially, be able to match student test scores to specific teachers, and that requires a great deal of finesse with the system. Most significantly, we must rely on the Education Data Warehouse to share with us this data, and that can sometimes be difficult. We must also convince teachers to allow us to match them up with those student scores. If we are unable to do this, well, despite the good work that we believe that we do, the Florida Joint Center for Citizenship will most likely cease to exist.

Of course we recognize the need to demonstrate our impact; it’s getting access to the data that we need in order to do this that is the difficult process, and it is a bit of a frustration that the impressive usage data is not adequate for the task. To facilitate this effort, as we relaunch a revised version of our website in the fall, we are going to ask that all users re-register on the site, and we humbly request that you provide us with enough registration data so that we may match users to scores. Please keep in mind that we will not be publishing individual scores or personally and publicly identifying teachers and scores; rather, this will simply be for justifying our continued existence to the legislature and the governor (assuming, of course, that the data is positive, which we believe it will be).

We believe, deeply, in the mission of the Florida Joint Center for Citizenship. We believe that the work that we do here does help teachers, schools, and districts in helping to develop that next generation of Florida, American, and global citizens. We hope that we may be allowed to continue that work, and that you might be willing to help us do so. We thank you for the support that you have provided in the past and in any support you choose to offer, and for your understanding as we work to collect the data that we so desperately need.

For now, if you have used our resources or attended our PDs, we would love for you to complete this survey that may help us.

Compromise in Civic Life and Civic Education

Posted on July 23, 2015 by stevemasy

Some have suggested that we are at a point in American civic life where citizens have never been more divided by partisanship, more offended (and eager to offend), and more angry. Our elections and our leadership seem to be increasingly partisan, combative and aggressive. Others point out that in fact we are not as divided as we think overall; while the two major parties themselves have clear differences, the electorate itself actually agrees on a larger number of issues than they think. Indeed, can the politics of today be any worse than the Election of 1800?

One thing that the current climate HAS brought us, despite the fact that we actually have more in common than we think, is the idea that ‘compromise‘ is a dirty word. As Deborah Tannen points out, many of our early leaders, the ones we find in our textbooks and give nicknames to, the ones that we valorize and heroify, would not recognize this idea when it comes to issues concerning the survival and success of the United States. Henry Clay, I think, says it best (p. 382):

I go for compromise whenever it can be made. All legislation, all government, all society is formed on the principle of mutual politeness, comity, courtesy; upon these everything is based. I bow to you today because you bow to me. You are respectful to me because I am respectful to you. Compromises have their recommendation that if you concede anything you have something conceded to you in return. Let him who elevates himself humanity above its weaknesses, its infirmities, its wants, its necessities say if he pleases I will never compromise, but let no who is not above the frailties of our common nature disdain compromise.

We must recognize, of course, that these many early compromises were intended to overcome America’s shameful, bloody original sin, but it does not negate the fact that compromise with your political opponents, your ideological foes, and even your theoretical allies may sometimes be necessary to make progress, no matter how incremental. As Unger (1998, p. 263) writes, when we pursue social and political change that can significantly impact who we are, how we live, and how we govern ourselves,

It is a mistake, for example, to oppose short-term and context-oriented proposals to the tentative exploration of long-term alternative futures, or moderation to radicalism, in programmatic thought. Any trajectory of cumulative structural change can be considered at points close to present social reality or distant from it. The direction matters more than the distance.

Any civic education that seeks to ensure an active and engaged citizenry, one willing to engage in deliberation rather than accusation, should work toward ensuring future citizens understand the importance that compromise MUST play in civic life. Here in Florida, we have fashioned our middle school civics course in such a way that students may develop that understanding. A number of civics benchmarks provide opportunities for a consideration of compromise in civic and political life. 7.C.1.8, for example, has students look at the arguments between Federalists and Anti-Federalists concerning the writing of the Constitution and the development of the Bill of Rights as a sort of ‘compromise’ document. 7.C.2.5 has these future citizens look at the Bill of Rights as a balance between liberty and security, between my rights and your rights. This itself is a form of compromise. 7.C.2.12, my favorite benchmark, has students “Develop a plan to resolve a state or local problem by researching public policy alternatives, identifying appropriate government agencies to address the issue, and determining a course of action.” A very C3 approach, don’t you think, especially as it has them researching and taking action? And in the process of researching and developing solutions…compromise would play a role. 7.C.2.13 goes well with 2.12 in having students consider alternative perspectives, another area where they must think about how those with disparate views might reach an accommodation. Even 7.3.C.4, which connects to a discussion of federalism, could invoke compromise. The concept of compromise, then, is almost baked into the benchmarks that we teach in Florida, though of course we must be sure that how we approach it aligns with the state item specifications and benchmark clarifications. Ultimately, we must realize that without compromise, we face some stark consequences. To borrow from Auden, ‘we must all love each other…’

Good News for Civic Education in Florida!

Posted on July 16, 2015 by stevemasy

Putting aside the question of whether Florida’s middle school civics benchmarks and related assessment are actually an appropriate measures of civic learning, some good news here in the Sunshine State concerning the past administration of the Civics EOCA. As you probably know, Florida is currently one of the few states with a somewhat high stakes test connected to civics. This test, while selected response, is crafted using Webb’s Depths of Knowledge as a guide, and students are given multiple choice questions that range from level 1 to level 3 on the cognitive complexity scale. The most recent scoring of the assessment revealed some positive growth on the part of students in Florida, and I am hopeful that this is a sign that civic education could make an impact long term. Let’s take a look at the positives:

Civics EOC Assessment By Achievement Level

This is good news! While one would hope for a greater number of level fours, any growth in the number of students scoring at level 3 can only be a good thing.

Achievement Level by Demographic Background

These numbers, again, are a positive. I am most excited by the growth in African American scores. For the first time, half of all African American students taking the assessment scored at least a 3, a jump of 7 percentage points. On the downside, only half of all African-American students scored at least a 3. This needs to change, and we need to figure out how to do it.

Growth in Achievement Level 4, by Demographic Background

Again, we see growth, but it is simply too low. Yes, great that more students scored higher on an equivalent test, but frustrating that so few are scoring at a high level. How do we change this?

Overall, much positive news. I encourage you to take a look at some of the other data in the report, including how your county might have done overall compared to other counties and to last year. One of the projects involving the Partnership for Civic Learning involves looking at what some of these schools and districts that exceed expectations are doing right. Can what they are doing be duplicated across the state? It is an important question to consider. For now, let’s enjoy the good news, review the data, and see how what we are doing might be impacting civic education in Florida.

Building a Lasting and EFFECTIVE Civics Advocacy Community?

Posted on July 16, 2015 by stevemasy

A realistic reworking of the famous and probably-never-said Mead quote, created by Joshua Miller and the participants in 2011 Summer Institute of Civic Studies. It reflects the reality of what needs to be done!
http://www.anotherpanacea.com/2011/07/what-can-small-groups-do/

We know that civic education in this country is, shall we say, having some issues. While there is an increased push for some sort of civics assessment as a requirement for high school graduation, there is no real discussion among policy makers (as opposed to civic theorists and educators, where the debate is ongoing) about whether the sort of high stakes civics assessment they envision is actually any good. We must also recognize the fact that while politicians and policy makers stress the importance of civic education, they are increasingly reluctant to fund it. Indeed, here at the Florida Joint Center for Citizenship, we have faced our own budget battles (and remain so grateful for the support provided by teachers, students, parents, and district leaders in ensuring that our funding was restored), and are contemplating new ways to approach our work that takes those budget concerns into account.

Ultimately, in my view at least, while we as a nation pay lip service to civic education, we struggle to agree on what that civic education should look like (reflecting the Westheimer and Kahne (2004) research that suggests 3 different types of citizens civic education creates, depending on the philosophical foundation of the particular course) or even how to best fund it. Should we expect to rely on philanthropy to fund quality civic education programs? If we do, what sort of philanthropy would be acceptable? As an organization, would we take funds from somewhat controversial folks behind the Bill of Rights of Institute (disclosure: I reviewed BoR materials for use in North Carolina while working for NCDPI and found them adequate for the standards to which they were written, with the organization very responsive to concerns and feedback) if it means that we can do our job and continue planting seeds in the garden of citizenship? Does it matter who gives the seeds if the garden can be grown according to the pattern and approach we envision? As this past legislative session here in Florida and the overall trend nationally indicates, we cannot rely on promises from the legislature to fund the work of civic education. What options then are open for us as we compete for shrinking funds in a time of increasing need?

In a conversation with my friend and colleague Jason Ross of Ashbrook, he suggested that

we friends of civic education have to take a step back and rethink the case we are making. Clearly our case is not resonating, and is getting drowned out by Common Core/STEM, etc. This is not fun to hear, of course, but I don’t think there is any getting around it.

There is nothing more that needs to be said, really. How do we, as civic educators, as a community of citizens, as those who believe that the purpose of education is citizenship, get civics back to the table, back in the discussion, back to the forefront, back to the role the early founders of the American education system envisioned for schools:

It is said, indeed by many, that our common people are already too well informed. Strange paradox! The truth is, they have too much knowlege and spirit to resign their share in government, and are not sufficiently informed to govern themselves in all cases of difficulty.

There are some acts of the American legislatures which astonish men of information; and blunders in legislation are frequently ascribed to bad intentions. But if we examin the men who compose these legislatures, we shall find that wrong measures generally proceed from ignorance either in the men themselves, or in their constituents. They often mistake their own interest, because they do not foresee the remote consequences of a measure.

It may be true that all men cannot be legislators; but the more generally knowlege is diffused among the substantial yeomanry, the more perfect will be the laws of a republican state.

…The virtues of men are of more consequence to society than their abilities; and for this reason, the heart should be cultivated with more assiduity than the head.

…until Legislators discover that the only way to make good citizens and subjects, is to nourish them from infancy; and until parents shall be convinced that the worst of men are not the proper teachers to make the best; mankind cannot know to what a degree of perfection society and government may be carried. America affords the fairest opportunities for making the experiment, and opens the most encouraging prospect of success.—Noah Webster, 1790

So, friends in civics, how do we get that ‘C’ added to STEM? How do we get ourselves back up without losing everything that makes real civic education, as opposed to rote memorization, possible? How do we expand the field of civic studies to bring in all stakeholders, especially those who NEED to understand what civic education should be? I have no answers, though these questions continue to percolate in my head and in my work. Do you?

Engaging College Students in Civic Life

Posted on July 10, 2015 by stevemasy

When I spent two weeks back home in the Boston area, I did more than just catch the Sox at Fenway and get inked (ahem). I spent that two weeks discussing civic work, civic life, and civic education with like minded folks from across the globe. As part of that discussion, we talked about ways in which we can create a sense of engagement among citizens, how community is formed and works, the role of the commons in civic life, and how we as educators and passionate citizens engage in the practice of civic work (among many many other things). Very recently, it has come to my attention that my colleague at the Bob Graham Center, Dr. Emma K. Humphries, is collaborating with Dr. Melissa Johnson, Associate Director of UF’s Honors Programs in implementing a brand new course that works with college students to:

• Familiarize themselves with the new city in which they live;
• Be a champion for the common good;
• Realize the power of individual and group action;
• Tackle real community problems by looking for creative solutions, using available resources, collaborating with others, and taking risks; and
• Reflect upon and evaluate methods for civic activism.

This is, I think, an exciting opportunity to engage new college students in the civic life of their new communities. To paraphrase their course syllabus, isn’t it better to get involved with your community, to engage in civic life, than to sit around and watch Netflix all summer? (The answer is Yes. Please say the answer is Yes.) I encourage you to take a look at the course syllabus below, and I know that Emma would love to hear from you if you have questions or comments about the course. I have asked her to do a reflective post for us at the end of the summer about the course and how it went, and the role that civics can play in the lives of college students. Wouldn’t it be fantastic if we could do something like this long term at the K-12 level? Imagine a course like this that scaffolds with students from Kindergarten through High School!

Syllabus for a course that could change the civic life of a college student

TeachingAmericanHistory.org Webinar on 14th and 15th Amendments

Posted on July 9, 2015 by stevemasy

We do not often share information about a PD opportunity that would cost you money, but I thought that perhaps this might be of interest and use, especially since it can be connected to Florida’s civics and history benchmarks in multiple grades. TeachingAmericanHistory.org, one of my own favorite sites for resources, is hosting a series of webinars on the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. The 13th Amendment one was done recently, but the 14th and 15th Amendments webinars are later this month. From our friends at TeachingAmericanHistory.org:

TAH.org and NCSS have partnered to provide a series of three webinars concerning the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments and the change in the Constitution that they represented and did not represent. We will seek to understand these amendments within the Constitution’s basic structure to see how they fix problems endemic to the Constitution, while also understanding these amendments in their immediate context as vehicles to bring peace and protection for freedmen at the end of the Civil War. We will look at the layers of context and the immediate effects of these amendments-and also why they failed to secure their goals in the years immediately following the Civil War.

Even though you may have missed the first webinar this past Tuesday there’s still time to register for the remaining two installments now.

Tuesday, July 14: Completing the Constitution with the 14th Amendment
This webinar focuses on how states would be re-integrated into the Union in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War and the powers Congress assumed in that extraordinary time. The 13th Amendment abolished slavery in all states of the Union, holding states to consistent standards for free labor and giving enforcement of this provision to the national Congress. Yet problems arose about the unequal treatment of freedmen after the war ended, giving rise to the need for a more radical limit on state power if the Union’s goals in the Civil War were to be accomplished.

Tuesday, July 21: The 15th Amendment and the Failure of Reconstruction
Reconstruction presents a dual-edged dilemma, as Republicans tried to re-integrate the Southerners back into the Union while providing protection for freedmen. The easier the terms of re-integration for the Southerners, the more difficult it would be to secure rights for the freedmen. The formula Republicans hit upon was to secure freedmen through the vote, so that they could, in effect, protect themselves. This strategy, adopted by the Grant Administration, required a huge effort on behalf of the Union army and law enforcement and was ultimately abandoned as requiring too much of an abridgment on Southern self-government.

Time: 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm ET / 3:30 pm – 5:00 pm PT

Presenter: Scott Yenor, Associate Professor and Department Chair of Political Science, Boise State University, Idaho; partner faculty member, Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs, Ashland University, Ohio.

Register Now

Please keep in mind that THIS DOES COST MONEY! NCSS members can attend the webinar for sixty dollars, while non-members may attend for 150 dollars. If you have any questions, please contact Jeremy Gypton, Teacher Programs Manager, at jgypton@tah.org

New FJCC Resource for Florida Elementary Civics!

Posted on July 9, 2015 by stevemasy

Friends in civics, I mentioned previously that I had spent a week in Miami last month, prior to my two weeks in Boston, working with our Val McVey and teachers and staff from Miami Dade schools. This work involved creating curricular materials for third through fifth grade that are aligned with the grade level Civics and Florida Standards for ELA. While we already have entire extended lessons for these, the new materials are actually intended to be 15 to 20 minute mini-lessons that we believe effectively get to the civics benchmarks without requiring a significant investment of time. Elementary social studies is the curricular equivalent of the Ottoman Empire in 1914: it exists, everybody likes to pretend it matters, but no one wants anything to really do with it until they absolutely have to. I’ve discussed this briefly before:

We know that both nationally and in Florida, social studies education is often lacking at the elementary level. This is NOT a new thing; generally speaking, social studies has been on the decline for decades, especially at the elementary level. The reasons for this are many and varied, but one can assume, rightly I think, that a decline in general social studies instruction could also result in a decline in civics instruction in the elementary grades.

The most pressing problem for elementary teachers is, most often, time. In our observations, and in the research, we just don’t see hard-pressed elementary teachers finding the time to do extensive work with social studies in general and civics in particular. To address this, we teamed with folks from Miami, with the support of their fantastic Social Studies director, Bob Brazofsky. The result of this partnership is our new collection of mini-lessons for elementary teachers, which we have termed

Civics in a Snap! For when you have just enough time to help your kids learn about being good citizens!

These mini-lessons will be shared with you once we get our new website up and running this fall. Miami-Dade is in the process of integrating them into their planning guides, and we will be hosting them on a new section of our website devoted to elementary civics. For now, I am sharing with you a sample of that work, in this case, the Civics in a Snap lesson for SS.3.C.2.1:Identify group and individual actions of citizens that demonstrate
civility, cooperation, volunteerism, and other civic virtues. Click on the images to embiggen them (embiggen is, of course, a perfectly cromulent word)!

If you have questions about these new resources, feel free to shoot me an email! We are so excited about what we hope will be a useful, and used, civics resource for elementary teachers!

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