So the Florida Joint Center for Citizenship at the Lou Frey Institute was invited to attend the first ever Student Government Inauguration Ceremony at Citrus Ridge Civics Academy.

This is a wonderful step forward for the school and for the district, reflecting the creation and nature of the school as a true ‘civics academy’ that will allow students to gain and practice the knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary to good citizenship.

The excellent student government adviser and civics integration specialist, Ms. Brindy Branneky, collaborated with FJCC’s Action Civics Coordinator, Chris Spinale and the students of Citrus Ridge to craft a student constitution modeled on that of Constitution High School in Philadelphia. After a contested and engaging election, the school elected a slate of officers and representatives for an executive and unicameral legislative branch (the judicial branch, which will take part in school discipline procedures, will likely be brought in next year as they seek to make the new system work!).

Congratulations to all of the new officers and representatives of Citrus Ridge!

The executive branch of Citrus Ridge Civics Academy Student Government

Newly elected class representatives are sworn into the Citrus Ridge Civics Academy House of Representatives

New Student Government President Ms. Aleciyah Brady is sworn in by Principal Leatherwood.

A significant effort was made to try and have this event reflect a ‘real’ inauguration ceremony, with lots of flags, an Inaugural Address, poetry, and even a parade!

President Brady delivers her First Inaugural Address

Congratulations to all of the new student government leaders:

President: Ms. Aleciyah Brady
Secretaries: Ms. Autumn Johnson and Ms. Mi-Na Bonterre
Sergeant at Arms: Ms. Alezia Dumas
Speaker of the House: Ms. Jaleanis Marquez
Treasurer: Mr. Kai Fussell
And all of the dozens of new members of the House Representatives!

We look forward to working with these students and their facilitators throughout the rest of the year and beyond! Thanks so much for inviting us!

It’s Founders Month here in Florida, and of course we will continue to recognize those men and women who played a role in the establishment of this country of ours, but this state of Florida ALSO has Founders, and let’s take a few minutes and recognize perhaps one of the most important groups that have played a role in Florida’s history and development (and continue to), the Seminole Indians.

The Seminoles are more than a group Andrew Jackson struggled to defeat, or the name of Florida State’s sports teams. As the Seminoles themselves declare, they never signed a peace treaty with the federal government of the United States. There history in what is now Florida and the southeastern United States dates back thousands of years, and their people and culture have undergone tremendous challenges over the course of the development of Florida.  By the time in 1842 that President John Tyler declared an end to federal efforts at forcing the Seminoles to sign a peace a treaty, the people of this indigenous community, which also welcomed both escaped slaves and free blacks, had suffered a great deal, and would struggle into the 20th century.

But the story of the Seminoles cannot be allowed to end with reference to their struggles in the 20th century. Rather, these Founders of Florida have maintained a thriving, multiracial, and active culture, and grown both economically and politically successful as a community a result of the establishment of the gaming industry and strong leadership of a variety of members of the Seminole Nation.

This post has only scratched the surface of the Seminole people, who have played such an important role in our state history and culture. You can learn a great deal more about Seminole history and culture from their own website. You can also check out this good lesson from Florida Memory, especially if you are looking towards the SS.4.A.3.8 benchmark!

Access the PowerPoint slide featured at the top of this post here: Seminole Nation

And of COURSE this Freedom Month don’t forget the Preamble Challenge from our friends at the Civics Renewal Network! Check it out today!

Democracy

America's Slide Toward Autocracy (The Atlantic)
Democracy has taken a beating under President Trump. Will the midterms make a difference? Continue Reading

Republicans' Turn in the Barrel (Wall Street Journal)
With the last primary in New York this Thursday, the 2018 general election is fully under way. Let's take stock of the political landscape as the contest enters its final eight weeks. Continue Reading

Americans Aren't Practicing Democracy Anymore (The Atlantic)
As participation in civic life has dwindled, so has public faith in the country's system of government. Continue Reading

Opportunity/Inequality

The Inequality Industry (The Nation)
Since 2008, wonks, politicians, poets, and bankers have all started talking about inequality. But are they interested in making us more equal? Continue Reading

Research: How the Financial Crisis Drastically Increased Wealth Inequality in the U.S. (Harvard Business Review)
We live in unequal times. The causes and consequences of widening disparities in income and wealth have become a defining debate of our age. Researchers have made major inroads into documenting trends in either income or wealth inequality in the United States, but we still know little about how the two evolve together - an important question to understand the causes of wealth inequality. Continue Reading

Queens College Ranked In Top 1% In Country For Upward Mobility
The results of a recent study, as reported on this week in the Chronicle of Higher Education, provides insight into how well Queens College is propelling students up the economic ladder. The Chronicle's list is drawn from Mobility Report Cards: The Role of Colleges in Intergenerational Mobility, the widely reported study in which a team led by former Stanford economics professor Raj Chetty assessed colleges' impact on social mobility. Continue Reading

Engagement

In Chicago, The Obamas' Civic Engagement Programs Are In Action (NPR)
The Obama Foundation has raised more than a quarter of a billion dollars so far to build the Obama Presidential Center on Chicago's South Side. Key to the Foundation's mission are programs to train the next generation of civic leaders. Continue Reading

Civic engagement app launches facial recognition feature to identify politicians (Biometric Update)
An app has been launched for iPhone and Android which identifies public figures with facial recognition to improve civic engagement. The CVX Civic Engagement app's "Name to a Face" feature compares an image in a photo taken by the user to a database of public officials with AI and machine learning to identify prominent U.S. politicians. Continue Reading

K-12

Rethinking What Gifted Education Means, and Whom It Should Serve (New York Times)
Montgomery County is one of several districts that is successfully diversifying its gifted programs, in part by overhauling the admissions process and rethinking the fundamental mission of such programs. Continue Reading

Passing schools, struggling students: Colorado reconsiders its formula for rating schools (Chalkbeat)
The vast majority of Colorado schools and districts get a passing score from state regulators who track their performance. Yet fewer than half of Colorado third-graders meet state expectations in literacy and just 34 percent meet state expectations in math. Continue Reading

In latest move, Gates Foundation looks to help - and learn from - charters serving students with disabilities (Chalkbeat)
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's new charter school strategy is taking shape. The foundation has made four grants in recent months focused on helping charter schools better serve students with disabilities. That's one of the ways Bill Gates said last fall that the influential foundation would focus its education giving over the next five years, along with efforts to grow networks of schools and improve curriculum. (The Gates Foundation is a supporter of Chalkbeat.) Continue Reading

Higher Ed/Workforce

Higher-education spending is falling (The Economist)
Universities are increasingly reliant on funds from the private sector. Continue Reading

Education Dept. Reopens Rutgers Case Charging Discrimination Against Jewish Students (New York Times)
The new head of civil rights at the Education Department has reopened a seven-year-old case brought by a Zionist group against Rutgers University, saying the Obama administration, in closing the case, ignored evidence that suggested the school allowed a hostile environment for Jewish students. Continue Reading

Colleges welcome first-year students by getting them thinking about jobs (Hechinger Report)
This new attention to career advising largely stems from growing expectations that institutions will help students get good jobs - which 85 percent of first-year students rated as "very important" among their reasons for going to college in the first place, according to a national survey conducted by an institute at UCLA. That's more than any other reason they considered "very important," including "to gain a general education and appreciation of ideas" and "to learn more about things that interest me." Continue Reading

Health Care

Hospitals sue HHS over 340B price transparency (Healthexec.com)
Hospital associations have launched a lawsuit that would prompt a court order to require drug companies to disclose the ceiling price for 340B drugs. Such requirements were already lawful under the Affordable Care Act, but the effective date has been delayed five times, according to the American Hospital Association. Continue Reading

Senators ask CMS to include opioid treatment in Medicare Advantage model (Modern Healthcare)
A bipartisan group of senators asked the CMS to expand the Medicare Advantage value-based insurance design model to include substance abuse disorder patients, saying it could help combat the opioid epidemic.Starting in 2020, the CMS should add substance use disorders to the specified clinical conditions identified in the current demonstration, Sens. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), John Thune (R-S.D.) and Chuck Grassley, (R-Iowa) wrote in a letter to CMS Administrator Seema Verma on Wednesday. Continue Reading

States are trying to lower drug prices. Here's how their efforts are being thwarted (Fierce Healthcare)
High drug prices may be a hot-button issue for the Trump administration with its blueprint to take on the problem released back in May. But faced with increased budget burdens tied to rapidly expanding prescription drug costs, state officials aren't waiting around for federal solutions for drug prices. Continue Reading

American Founders’ Month (and Freedom Week!) continues in Florida. Today, let’s take a look at one of the earliest advocates for women’s rights in our young nation’s history, especially relevant as we approach the anniversary of the 19th Amendment: Judith Sargent Murray.

Judith Sargent Murray was born in pre-Revolutionary Boston, the daughter of a well-to-do merchant family. It as fortunate for us, as it was for her, that her parents believed in educating their daughters as well as their sons. Unfortunately, this education was limited to reading and writing; Sargent Murray had little opportunity for advanced education. Instead, she took advantage of her father’s vast library and educated herself in history, civics, philosophy, literature, and so much more. This education, so much of it self-taught, she put to work as a writer and thinker and, most importantly, advocate for the rights of women and the equality of the sexes.

For Judith Sargent Murray, the way in which we consider the roles and educations of boys and girls was unjust, stifling, and wrong. In her seminal work, ‘On the Equality of the Sexes‘ (1790), she raises doubts about the argument that men are inherently the intellectual superiors to women:

“Yet it may be questioned, from what doth this superiority, in thus discriminating faculty of the soul proceed. May we not trace its source in the difference of education, and continued advantage?…As their years increase, the sister must be wholly domesticated, while the brother is led by the hand through all the flowery paths of science”

In other words, the only reason men can claim superiority to women is because we do not give women the same education and opportunities as men! This theme would reappear throughout her work over the years, and she never ceased believing that America offered a great opportunity for a reconsideration of the role and education of girls. The new nation, after all, needed women who would raise the next generation to believe in and understand the American spirit and model, a ‘Republican motherhood‘ that required educated, passionate, and (to a degree for its day) liberated women.

Sargent Murray practiced what she preached, educating the children in her house as she believed they deserved and as was right. She also wrote hundreds of essays and letters and articles, many of which were published under pen names in such a way as to hide the fact that she was a woman, for she feared her arguments would be automatically rejected. She was a ‘Founding Mother’ of the pursuit of equal rights, an advocate for the American project, and someone who encouraged the new nation to live up to the ideals it promised. You can learn more about the wonderful Judith Sargent Murray from this excellent lesson.

Grab the PowerPoint featured at the top of this post: Judith Sargent Murray AFM

And of COURSE this Freedom Month don’t forget the Preamble Challenge from our friends at the Civics Renewal Network! Check it out today!

Hey friends in social studies! Have you registered to attend the upcoming Florida Council for the Social Studies Annual Conference, to be held here in sunny Orlando, Florida from October 19th to October 21st? If not, why not? It’s going to be an excellent time to network, connect, and learn! Check out some of the sessions and networking opportunities we have available!

REGISTER FOR THE CONFERENCE HERE! 

Of course we begin with a celebration of social studies in Florida! Join us for a reception on Friday!

Sessions on Saturday and Sunday will cover a variety of topics across all grade levels, including digital learning, simulations, discussion models, curriculum tools and resources, controversial issues, and more!

On Saturday, we will feature the wonderful Dr. Tina Heafner of UNC-Charlotte, who will discuss the role that social studies NEEDS to play in the lives of our students and our communities!

On Sunday, we are very excited for a Brunch and Learn with Sajeet Kaur of the Sikh Coalition!

The National Archives is offering a free pop up display titled Rightfully Hers

To commemorate the 100^th anniversary of the ratification of the 19^th amendment

 

Spotlighting this landmark moment in American history and what it took to secure voting rights for women, this pop up display contains simple messages exploring the history of the 19^th amendment’s ratification, women’s voting rights before and after the 19^th amendment, and its impact today.

 

The link to request one will go live here at Noon EDT on Wednesday, September 19. You will not be able to request one before so mark your calendar! They will go fast!

Displays will be delivered in early March 2019.

 

Presented in part by Unilever, Pivotal Ventures, Carl M. Freeman Foundation in honor of Virginia Allen Freeman, AARP and the National Archives Foundation.

This new pop up history will be a nice addition to all of the resources available to celebrate our Constitution, especially near Constitution Day! Be sure to check out the Preamble Challenge from our friends at the Civics Renewal Network! Check it out today!