Add Your Voice to a National Field-Building Civic Learning Coalition

by Shawn P. Healy, PhD, Democracy Program Director

The McCormick Foundation is proud to be a part of a national field-building coalition for change in civic learning. In February, our Board of Directors approved a $200,000 grant to iCivics, the leader of this coalition, and I have been subsequently asked to serve on its steering committee.

This work launches at a perilous time, where democratic governance itself is increasingly considered a “bad” or “very bad” means to “run this country,” particularly among our youngest Americans.


It builds upon the Democracy at a Crossroads Summit last September, which highlighted the aforementioned trends coupled with the marginalization of school-based civic learning, but also promising policy and funding responses in Florida and Illinois to reverse the latter trend. The conditions are ripe for an expansion of this work, with a strong group of civic learning leaders and a handful of foundations at the table. And a policy window is opening for state-centered reforms between the 2018 midterm and the 2020 presidential elections.

This field-building effort is an attempt to affect systemic change. It is informed by previous successes in STEM and social-emotional learning (SEL), beginning with a root cause analysis of why civic learning is so marginalized. We also hope to identify the key levers for systems change, along with obstacles that may impede our path.

A multilevel campaign will follow this root cause analysis and I’ll have much more to say on its specifics in the months ahead, but in the short term, you can contribute by adding your voice to our State of Civic Education Survey. It takes 10-15 minutes to complete, and your input is valuable regardless of your title or affiliation. We are all stakeholders in the civic development of each successive generation of Americans, and you can help us develop solutions to the current crisis in civic learning, and ultimate preserve and strengthen our democratic institutions for posterity.

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