I am pasting excerpts of a press release below, because I am excited about what it announces and I have been involved as a consultant on the project. It is an example of the kind of strategy we recommended in the report of the Commission on Youth Voting and Civic Knowledge, entitled “All Together Now: Collaboration and Innovation for Youth Engagement” (2013):

Sacramento, Calif., August 5, 2014 – California Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torklakson today received the Final Report of the California Task Force on K-12 Civic Learning. The report is the culmination of a year-long process of assessing the state of civic learning in California schools, receiving input at regional meetings, and crafting research-based recommendations to ensure that all California K-12 students gain the knowledge, skills and values they need to succeed in college, career and civic life.  Both the executive summary and the full report are available online.

Members of the California Task Force on K-12 Civic Learning, co-chaired by Justice Judith McConnell and Sacramento County Superintendent of Schools David Gordon, presented the recommendations aimed at providing all students in California with the instruction, support and experiences they need to actively participate in society and succeed in the 21^st century workplace.

These recommendations include:

• revision of the California History/Social Science content standards;
• integration of civic learning into state assessment and accountability systems;
• improved professional learning for teachers connected to Common Core State Standards;
• sharing of curriculum resources and best practices;
• engaging stakeholders from local government, business, the courts, nonprofits, community organizations and parents; and
• promoting funding in Local Control Accountability Plans (LCAP) through Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF).

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The Workforce Investment Act of 1998 consolidated federal adult education programs. Congress just passed a re-authorization that has gone to the president for his signature. Section 201 deals with Adult Education and Family Literacy. The reauthorized section 201 “create[s] a partnership among the Federal Government, States, and localities to provide, on a voluntary basis, adult education and literacy activities.” The list of purposes for these activities begins with employment and job skills, as one would expect for a Department of Labor program. But the Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools alerted me to section 4(b), which mentions another outcome: “acquiring an understanding of the American system of Government, individual freedom, and the responsibilities of citizenship.” Section 243 then specifically mentions “integrated English literacy and civics education.” Funds for this purpose are to be allocated–in part–on the basis of the number of newly naturalized citizens per state. Money can flow to nonprofits, state agencies, universities, libraries, etc.

Of course, everything depends on how these provisions are implemented. Civics education for new immigrants could be mere jingoistic propaganda, or it could be well-intentioned and yet poorly handled. However, as I argued in a CNN.com column last year, we can and should educate new immigrants for effective and responsible civic participation. That will be good for them as individuals, good for their communities, and good for democracy. I am enthusiastic about these provisions in the Workforce Investment Act. It is now up to us to make sure they are well implemented.

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In Chicago, 17-year-olds were permitted to vote in the March primary election. Chicago is a hotbed of excellent youth civic engagement groups, and they came together to register high school students and encourage them to vote. In the coalition were frequent partners of ours, including the Constitutional Rights Foundation Chicago and the Mikva Challenge. The result of their work–and students’ own enthusiasm–was a youth turnout rate of 15%. That doesn’t sound very impressive until you learn that students beat their elders in a low-turnout primary. The same thing happened in Takoma Park, MD last year.

I have advocated lowering the voting age to 17, and our Commission on Youth Voting and Civic Knowledge recommends considering that policy. While kids are still in school, they can be taught about the voting process and the governmental system before they vote. Most are still at home at 17 and connected to family and neighborhood networks that encourage voting. A year later, many have moved away for the first time into age-segregated youth zones–college dorms or apartments populated by young workers–where turnout is low. This matters because voting is habitual. Mark Franklin even argues that making 18 the age of eligibility permanently lowered turnout in many industrialized democracies. I certainly wouldn’t raise the age, but I would strongly consider lowering it by one year.

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(Durham, NC) For about a year, I have been assisting a task force called “the Power of Democracy” that formed in California under the active leadership of the state’s Chief Justice, Tani Cantil-Sakauye. Members have been thoughtful and dogged about promoting civic learning and civic engagement in their state, working with their state education agency, the legislature, the judiciary, and key nongovernmental organizations, discussing significant policy changes, giving awards, holding public meetings, and otherwise drawing attention to civic education. I am optimistic that real improvements will come in California.

I’m able to write all this now because the Power of Democracy has a new public face in the form of an excellent website. If you explore it, you’ll see a new article by the leader of the California Chamber of Commerce arguing that business needs better civic education; the “six promising practices” of civics (which originated at CIRCLE) used as their definition of what works; and my own analysis of California’s current civic ed. policies. But the most promising aspect of the project is the strong team that has come together to advocate for civic education in a way that emphasizes equity in opportunities and civic action as the desired outcome.

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From the CIRCLE homepage today:

Young people in the United States are starkly divided in how they use their leisure time. Some exclusively pursue their artistic or athletic passions and eschew other types of activities. Others spend their time on academic clubs, perhaps “building their resume” with an eye toward applying to selective universities. Still others are mostly disengaged from extracurriculars and other organized activities, either because they are working for pay or because they would rather informally hang out with friends. This variation, and the “clusters” of like-minded students that it creates, can partially be attributed to personal preference. However, it also reflects troubling gaps based on widening social disparities.

In our most recent working paper, “Harry, Hermione, Ron and Neville– Portraits of American Teenagers’ Extracurricular Involvement, and Implications for Educational Interventions,” CIRCLE Deputy Director Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg analyzes these trends in how contemporary American teens spend their leisure time, with particular consideration to how socioeconomic class affects students’ involvement in organized activities their schools or communities.

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Earlier this week, we released CIRCLE Working Paper #80 by Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg: “Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Neville – Portraits of American Teenagers’ Extracurricular Involvement, and Implications for Educational Interventions.” Kei uses cluster analysis to divide all American high school seniors into six groups, depending on their extracurricular activities. Each group has strikingly different social class backgrounds and divergent prospects for academic success and civic engagement after high school.

Extracurricular activities provide crucial opportunities to learn skills, develop networks, and explore passions. We must invest in opportunities for the roughly 35% of American high school seniors who are largely left out of after-school activities. (And that is an underestimate, because Kei assesses only those students who have stayed in school until 12th grade.)

Following in the tradition of an excellent 2001 paper that associated groups of real American teenagers with characters from the movie “The Breakfast Club,”* Kei identifies each cluster of American teens with a different character from the Harry Potter series. This is partly a mnemonic, but it also makes the point that characters are complex and trajectories are changeable. If we called 16% of American youth “slackers” (because they do not report being involved in anything constructive out of school) that would present a unidimensional image and suggest that they are irretrievably lost to civic society. But by associating them with the Weasley Twins, Kei reminds us that they have complex and varied characters and are subject to change.

* Barber, B. L., Eccles, J. S., & Stone, M. R. (2001). Whatever happened to the jock, the brain, and the princess? Young adult pathways linked to adolescent activity involvement and social identity. Journal of Adolescent Research, 19(5), 429-455

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(Logan Airport) This article is newly out and publicly available:

Peter Levine, “Teaching the Deeper Aspects of Civic Education,” The Standard (National Association of State Boards of Education), March 24, 2014, pp. 37-39.

It is my best effort at a 3-page argument for policymakers and advocates, describing what we should want young people to learn, what obstacles stand in the way of satisfactory outcomes, and what policy changes would help.

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Today, CIRCLE releases case studies of three significant state-level reforms for civic education. We chose them because they reflect very different approaches to improving civics (or any other major topic) through state legislation:

• In Florida, the Justice Sandra Day O’Connor Civics Education Act passed in 2010, mandating a high-stakes standardized test in civics.
• In Hawaii, a required “Participation in Democracy” course places a strong emphasis on experiential education; the requirement was passed in 2006 and an effort to repeal it was defeated.
• In Tennessee, recent legislation mandates project-based civics assessments at the middle and high school levels.

It’s too early to say which reform “works,” in the sense of generating the best outcomes for students, but the CIRCLE studies reveal some of the pros and cons of each strategy.

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