Civics Course Implementation Blog

by Shawn P. Healy, PhD, Democracy Program Director Since 2006, the Illinois Civic Mission Coalition , convened by the McCormick Foundation, has recognized 74 Illinois high schools as Democracy Schools . The recognition process has evolved significantly, broadening civics to a cross-curricular priority, measuring the organizational culture undergirding students’ civic learning experiences, and most recently, centering racial equity through a lived civics framework and disaggregating student survey data by race/ethnicity. This spring, eleven members of our Democracy Schools Network piloted a revised student survey and schoolwide assessment process. What follows is a summary of trends in the student survey data, disaggregated by race ( read the full analysis of questions related to lived civics ). The sample of 3,904 students was broadly representative of Illinois’ demographic and geographic diversity. White and Latinx students were slightly overrepresented, and Black students un...

by Mary Ellen Daneels, Civics Instructional Specialist October 21-25th marks the 5th Annual U.S. Media Literacy Week. The mission of Media Literacy Week is to raise awareness about the need for media literacy education and its essential role in education today. Organizations, schools, and educators from all over the country will be sharing resources via #MediaLitWk. In the 2017 report, “ The Republic is (Still) at Risk—and Civics is Part of the Solution ”, cites media literacy as a complementary stream of civic education. The report explains: ...young people are increasingly empowered to influence the topics and stories that are widely shared. At the same time, they are deluged with unreliable information and actual propaganda, and research shows that most young people perform poorly at distinguishing fake news from reliable news. This skill can be taught effectively in schools, and students can learn to be effective producers of news. Given these recent developments, the n...

by Mary Ellen Daneels, Instructional Specialist Monday marks the start of a new term for the Supreme Court of the United States ( SCOTUS ). The 2019-20 term is sure to provide many teachable moments as SCOTUS takes up issues related to immigration, abortion, gun rights, and LGBTQ workplace discrimination. For #CivicsInTheMiddle classrooms, there are plenty of opportunities to use the courts to engage in the proven practices of civic education embedded in both the middle and high school civics mandates . Here are some resources to start with. Direct Instruction on the Supreme Court The official website for the United States Supreme Court allows access to a variety of information on the Court, including a calendar and schedule for the current term, and the audio from oral arguments, posted each Friday after arguments take place. There is also an overview of the Supreme Court where you can research the Court’s procedures and biographies of justices. iCivics has a curricul...