by Andy McLeod The We the People competition has trained young Americans to know and engage in our democratic system for over 30 years. It has long been recorded that Benjamin Franklin, when departing the Constitutional Convention in 1787, was asked “Well, Doctor, what have we ...
by Sam Daley-Harris With the death of singer-songwriter Eric Carmen last month and Earth Day yesterday, I got to thinking about Carmen’s song “All By Myself” and how deeper forms of activism are both essential to making change and a powerful antidote to our growing epidemic of ...
by Liam Julian Perhaps at no moment in recent American memory has a widespread understanding of civics been more crucial. Yet the portents are ominous. The latest surveys show that fewer than half of American adults can correctly name the three branches of government, and the ...
by Victor Shi The country is living through history with the first-ever federal indictment of a former president. A grand jury of Miami residents charged Donald Trump with 37 federal counts, ranging from the willful retention of national defense information to obstruction of justice. ...
You may have seen that in addition to reading and math scores, the Nation’s Report Card also noted a decrease in students’ history and civics scores. There’s certainly an argument for suggesting teaching less history (or less accurate history) directly impacts students’ understanding ...
Two news items should give us pause about how we are teaching and learning civics. Item No. 1: American eighth graders’ civics scores have declined for the first time ever, according to just-released scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the “Nation’s ...