Goals
Longer-term goals and possibilities for Civics for All:
District level
- Add new course requirement: semester long “Civics and Contemporary Problems” course in addition to current semester of required “American Government” for seniors – or merge the two and into a year long course titled “American Government and Civics” or similar.
- Add new course elective: “Media Literacy for Citizens”.
- Explore revision of 9th and 10th grade social studies expectations, perhaps adding a required “Freshman Civics” course for first semester freshmen.
- Add Public Service and Political Science Academies (PSA), similar to Franklin High’s old PSA, at every high school, and perhaps middle schools.
- Add required legislative service learning projects like Franklin’s “Olympia Project” and former “D.C. Project” at all high schools.
- Add the word “politics” to SSD website: the Social Studies department supports learning about the world in the contexts of History, Economics, Geography, and Civics.
State and federal levels
- New and expanded state civics education requirements. The Washington State Legislature deserves praise for adding a required semester of government/civics for those districts that did not already have that requirement. They should now consider passing more civics education requirements – a 9th grade SS Civics class would be a great one to consider.
- Congressional resolution directing states to explore stiffer state civics requirements, similar to former Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s recent civics education bill in the House (2011).
