Every other Tuesday, the team behind Civics 101 joins NHPR’s All Things Considered host Julia Barnett to talk about how our democratic institutions actually work.
Earlier this year, hosts Hannah McCarthy and Nick Capodice spoke with civics and social studies teachers from across the country about what it’s like to teach civics right now. And some teachers are having a tough time.
Nick spoke with NHPR’s All Things Considered host Julia Barnett about what teachers are going through.
Transcript
As you’ve spoken about in the past, civics education gets very little federal funding. Could you remind us of how much, exactly?
Sure! So this year’s federal education budget was around $66 billion, and civics education got $23 million, which is about 0.03%. NAEP, which listeners might know as the Nation’s Report Card, last assessed that civics and U.S. history got the two lowest proficiency scores among 8th graders of any subjects, scoring 22 and 15% proficiency respectively.
So besides the lack of funding, what is driving these low scores?
A whole lot, and in my opinion it is not the fault of the teachers or the students. Even before No Child Left Behind, when rigorous standards and testing for reading and math pushed civics and social studies to the wayside, these categories were already becoming marginalized. One of the driving factors I’ve heard speaking with teachers and administrators around the country is the divisive political climate. A recent survey of civics teachers done by iCivics revealed that over half of them say that teaching even basic civics concepts is difficult, 58% report a fear of backlash for teaching it the quote unquote wrong way, and most painful to hear of all, 21% reported considering leaving the profession, leaving teaching, due to the divisive climate.
Is there any good news on the civics education front?
There absolutely is, and unsurprisingly while these national figures paint a pretty bleak picture, there is a whole lot more going on at the state level. Which makes sense when we remember that the federal government has very little to do with what’s taught in classrooms, it’s almost entirely a state by state issue.
Right now there are 240 bills across 40 states that impact civic education. First off, this year 10 states, including New Hampshire, passed or are in the process of passing legislation to provide state civic seals on high school diplomas. These are awarded to students who show exemplary adoption of civic virtues. And this isn’t necessarily understanding the three branches and how a bill becomes a law, but rather involvement in their community, information literacy, or practicing in civil discourse; having conversations with people who disagree with you politically. Add to that that NAEP is revising its 30-year-old framework of how we assess civics, and that for the first time the data will be broken down state by state, meaning we’ll be able to understand what actions certain states are taking to bring those scores up, which could be adopted by other states.
So it seems that people who care about civic education have some cause for celebration.
They do, it really feels like it’s in the air, Julia.
