When drafting the Constitution and during the debates surrounding its ratification, the Founding Fathers expressed a belief in the ability of the United States to establish “a more perfect union.” Yet, the framers also were aware of the challenges and uncertainties that lay ahead.

Drawing on their knowledge of history and philosophy, and their own experiences, they understood the historical failures of democracies and republics, such as those in ancient Greece and Rome. The evolution of these systems into autocratic empires that led to their downfall fueled concerns about the sustainability of the American experiment.

Today, the question of whether the United States is ready for a new republic looms large, especially as voices within both political parties question the desirability of the limited government envisioned by the founders.

For this reason, the need for civics education has never been greater. After all, today’s high school and college students will be the generation tasked with making serious decisions about the direction and fate of the country. But it’s clear that the way we are educating students about civics—if at all—is failing. According to one study, fewer than half of adults could name the three branches of government, and 26% could not name a single right guaranteed by the First Amendment.

As we live in what some argue is the second American republic (born with the ratification of the U.S. Constitution in 1789), students must ask themselves if they are prepared for a potential third republic.

To make informed decisions about the nation’s future, students must first understand the seven American Principles that together make the American experiment unique: Civic Engagement, Egalitarianism, Entrepreneurship, Governance, Individualism, Liberty and Trade. Studying history and civics through the lens of these American Principles will equip tomorrow’s citizens to make informed decisions about the kind of country they desire to live in.

As citizens grapple with weighty topics such as constitutional changes, alterations to the Supreme Court, winner-takes-all elections, and the traditional two-party system, the need for informed civic participation becomes increasingly urgent. Civics education based on American Principles plays a pivotal role in preparing students to understand and evaluate the promises, failures, and alternatives that shape the American experiment.

The exploration of American Principles is not just a theoretical exercise but a practical tool for students to navigate the complex terrain of American governance and contribute meaningfully to the ongoing conversation about the nation’s future.

When the Constitutional Convention of 1787 concluded its work, a woman asked Benjamin Franklin what type of government the Founding Fathers had created. Franklin replied, “A Republic, if you can keep it.”

As the American experiment evolves, each of us is responsible for its direction. I believe the discussion has already begun. We must be prepared when asked, “If not this, then what?”

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“It forces collaboration between social studies, math, English and science teachers,” he explains. “They’re working together and our kids are getting the medicine they need—it’s not just about remediation, it’s about acceleration.”

Literacy growth rates had slipped to under 40% during the height of COVID but have now resurged to over 50% of students meeting expectations. Dignan’s main solutions are HMH’s Math 180 and Read 180 and the platforms’ new Flex component that helps teachers adapt instruction toward individual students’ learning needs, Dignan attests.

Principal Lori Webster and Reading Interventionist Alexandra Wilcox have made embedded interventions in both the methodology and the mindset at Mountain Mahogany Community School in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Back in 2018, only 20% of the small charter school’s students scored proficient in reading. To boost literacy rates, the two educators have since had their elementary school teachers participate in IMSE’s training in the Orton-Gillingham multisensory approach to the science of reading.

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It incorporates writing, reading and talking, and the method is the same whether students are in their regular classes or receiving a push-in intervention in their classrooms. “I would love for more teachers to understand that this is not just additional work for them, this is in exchange for things that they already teach,” Wilcox says. “What I’ve noticed as our teachers have implemented it is they feel like we’re taking some things away because it is working.”

Mountain Mahogany is now recognized as a Structured Literacy Model School by the New Mexico Public Education Department. “What’s most rewarding for me as a teacher is seeing confidence grow,” Wilcox explains. “I see students go from ‘I can’t do this’ to ‘Oh, I can do this.’ It’s like cracking the code.”

Embedded interventions inspire independence

Teaching and assessing literacy is the top professional development priority at Wayne-Westland Community Schools and HMH’s Flex instruction has replaced disruptive pull-out interventions. “Even Pre-COVID, a large percentage of kids were coming in one or two grade levels behind,” Dignan points out. “As a central office team, we knew we wouldn’t be able to intervene our way out of it.”

More students are now catching up to grade level and moving on to accelerated instruction. Students are able to see the progress they are making as they are better grasping the texts and making improvements in all of their core classes. The adaptive platforms allow teachers to abandon traditional “stand-and-deliver” instruction and give students more autonomy and independence.

“Going through everything being virtual and combing back, some of the skills teachers picked up allowed them to become facilitators of learning and use more small group instruction in lieu of the traditional ‘For the next 55 minutes, you’re going to listen to me talk,'” Dignan concludes. “We’re moving way past that.”

District Administration’s Superintendent’s Playbook series examines how superintendents, principals and other administrators are solving common problems that today’s educators are facing. 

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That decision by the state’s Department of Education makes Arkansas the second state after Florida to block the highly anticipated class that the College Board had been piloting in a growing number of high schools over the last few years.

High school educators were notified of the change in a phone call last week with state officials who also told the teachers that the Department of Education would not cover the $90 fee for the end-of-year AP African American Studies test, the Arkansas Times reported.

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Several teachers had spent the summer preparing to teach the course, the Arkansas Times noted, adding that state officials could not be reached for an explanation. But Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Arkansas Secretary of Education Jacob Oliva had earlier this year embarked on a wide-ranging K12 curriculum review, looking to rout out “indoctrination and critical race theory,” the Arkansas Times explained.

Controversy first flared earlier this year when the College Board notoriously altered the AP African American Studies curriculum to appease Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and members of his administration who had barred the course from Florida high schools. DeSantis administration officials rejected AP African-American Studies because they believed it “lacks educational value,” is historically inaccurate, and veers into critical race theory in violation of Florida’s controversial Stop WOKE Act, the National Review reported last month.

The College Board removed many Black scholars associated with critical race theory, the queer experience and Black feminism from the official curriculum, The New York Times reported. The College Board also scrubbed Black Lives Matter and added “Black conservatism” as a potential research topic, the Times says.

“This course is an unflinching encounter with the facts and evidence of African American history and culture,” David Coleman, CEO of the College Board, said in a statement in April. “No one is excluded from this course: the Black artists and inventors whose achievements have come to light; the Black women and men, including gay Americans, who played pivotal roles in the civil rights movement; and people of faith from all backgrounds who contributed to the antislavery and civil rights causes. Everyone is seen.”

AP African American Studies will continue to be piloted this school year, and in about 800 high schools, which was twice what the College Board had anticipated prior to a surge in demand, USA Today reported.

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“The AP course asks students to ‘describe how sex and gender influence socialization and other aspects of development,'” the College Board said in a statement. “Any AP Psychology course taught in Florida will violate either Florida law or college requirements.”

A recently passed state law makes it illegal for teachers to discuss sexual orientation and gender identity, which have been covered in the course since it was created 30 years ago. Without those topics, the course would no longer meet standards for Advanced Placement, college credit or career readiness, the College Board explained.

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The American Psychological Association added that a course that omits sexual orientation and gender identity would violate its guidelines and shouldn’t bear college credit. More than 28,000 Florida students took AP Psychology during the 2022-23 school year, the College Board pointed out.

“The state’s ban of this content removes choice from parents and students,” the organization said. “Coming just days from the start of school, it derails the college readiness and affordability plans of tens of thousands of Florida students currently registered for AP Psychology, one of the most popular AP classes in the state.”

In response, Florida has accused the College Board of “attempting to force school districts to prevent students from taking AP Psychology.” Other advanced course providers, such as the International Baccalaureate program, are continuing to attach college credit to psychology courses, Cassie Palelis, a spokesperson for the Florida Department of Education, told NBC News.

“The Department didn’t ‘ban’ the course. The course remains listed in Florida’s Course Code Directory for the 2023-24 school year,” Palelis said in an email to NBC News. “We encourage the College Board to stop playing games with Florida students and continue to offer the course and allow teachers to operate accordingly.”

AP Psychology is not the only course in the crosshairs

Advanced Placement has been a target of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration, which earlier this year—right around Martin Luther King Day, in fact—barred schools from offering AP African-American Studies. Florida Department of Education officials told the College Board in January that it had rejected AP African-American Studies because it “lacks educational value,” the National Review reported at the time. DeSantis’ administration also believes the course veers into critical race theory in violation of Florida’s controversial Stop WOKE Act, according to the National Review.

But that wasn’t the administration’s final move to reshape how African American history is taught beyond the most advanced high school courses. New African American history standards approved by the state’s board of education in July ask students to consider that slavery may have been beneficial because the people enslaved learned vocational skills.

The new curriculum will also offer high school students a new perspective on the 1920 Ocoee Massacre, in which 30 Black Floridians were killed while trying to vote. Teachers must also cover “acts of violence perpetrated by African Americans,” according to the standards.

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The new curriculum will also offer high school students a new perspective on the 1920 Ocoee Massacre, in which 30 Black Floridians were killed while trying to vote. The teachers must apply the lens of “acts of violence perpetrated by African Americans,” the Florida Education Association charged in a letter to the board of education.

Finally, while elementary students will be expected to identify leading figures of African American history—such as Rosa Parks, Zora Neale Hurston and George Washington Carver—they will not learn about their achievements, the union’s letter argues. Andrew Spar, the Association’s president, blamed Florida governor and presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, who has famously called his state the place where “woke came to die” and championed the controversial “Don’t Say Gay” law that restricted how schools can teach about LGBTQ issues.

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“How can our students ever be equipped for the future if they don’t have a full, honest picture of where we’ve come from?” Spar asked. “Gov. [Ron] DeSantis is pursuing a political agenda guaranteed to set good people against one another, and in the process he’s cheating our kids.”

But proponents, such as DeSantis school board appointee MaryLynn Magar, insist the standards developed by a state task force will give Florida’s students a complete understanding of African American history.

“Everything is there,” the Tallahassee Democrat quoted Magar as saying at a contentious meeting on Wednesday. “The darkest parts of our history are addressed … I can confidently say that the DOE and the task force believe that African American history is American history, and that’s represented in those standards.”

In response to the adoption of the African American history standards, FEA issued the following press release.

"How can our students ever be equipped for the future if they don’t have a full, honest picture of where we’ve come from?” @andrewsparfea pic.twitter.com/1mhzouuewo

— Florida Education Association (@FloridaEA) July 19, 2023

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First of all, parents—just like most K12 leaders—overwhelmingly agree that schools should provide emotional and mental health care to students. Most families also say children need opportunities to share their thoughts and feelings with trusted adults at school who are not their parents. A large majority of parents also want schools to foster safe learning environments that promote student voice and to use historically accurate educational materials, according to the National PTA’s latest survey of 1,400 parents and guardians.

In fact, 92% of parents think that all students should feel seen, heard and included at school, the survey found.

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“It is also important that our families advocate for, and our children receive, culturally inclusive and historically accurate curriculum and educational materials,” says Anna King, president of the National PTA. “It is critical that all of us work together to create learning environments where all students feel safe, supported, seen and most importantly, heard.”

School violence and bullying remain parents’ top concerns, with six in 10 of the adults surveyed admitting that they’re often or sometimes worried about these threats. Parents’ fears of violence and bullying have increased more than any other concern since the National PTA launched this series of surveys in September 2021.

On a topic that administrators may find encouraging, parents are focused on curriculum—but not in the way that makes headlines these days. A large majority of parents say they intend to review their children’s textbooks and other learning materials at the beginning of the 2023-24 school year. However, the survey found parents are more likely to contact their child’s school if they believe there is something missing from the curriculum rather than if there are elements to which they object.

And most parents are keenly interested in summer programs and activities that keep their children physically active and interacting with other kids and that also support learning. Administrators should know, however, that the survey revealed a significant gap between parents’ interest in these programs and their ability to access them.

Here are more details of what parents had to say:

• 61% worry about their child experiencing violence at school and 57% of parents worry about their child being bullied
• 95% want to be notified if their child is receiving mental health support at school.
• 86% want their child to go to adults at school with problems or worries that they don’t feel comfortable sharing at home.
• 79% say schools to obtain parents’ consent before providing children with mental health support.
• 76% think school staff should be allowed to keep at least some things private from conversations with students.

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The move came just a few days after the state of California announced it was investigating the Southern California school board in the wake of its rejection of a social studies curriculum that contained supplemental material covering assassinated LGBTQ civil rights leader Harvey Milk, The Press-Enterprise reported.

In an attempt to explain the ban earlier this month, School Board President Joseph Komrosky called Milk “a pedophile,” according to CBS Los Angeles. Milk was the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California.

On Tuesday, Komrosky was joined in a 4-1 vote to oust McClay immediately by a slate of newly elected conservative school board members, The Press-Enterprise reported. Three of those members were already the target of a recall effort sparked by the controversial social studies decision.

McClay became Temecula Valley Unified School District’s superintendent in June 2020 after having worked in the district for more than 20 years, The Press-Enterprise noted.

Assistant Superintendent Kimberly Velez is now serving as the interim superintendent, ABC7 reported.

Earlier on the day of her dismissal, McClay and her achievements as a leader were endorsed by the Association of California School Administrators.

Under McClay, the Temecula Valley Unified School District was among the only four districts in vast Riverside County school to reopen for in-person learning in spring 2021, the Association’s Executive Director Edgar Zazueta wrote in a letter he sent to the school board this week.

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“As superintendent, she has demonstrated a deep commitment to meeting the needs of all students and ensuring that they have access to a safe, supportive learning environment,” Zazueta asserted. “Dr. McClay’s focus on innovation, collaboration, and community engagement has been instrumental in driving positive outcomes for students and improving the lives of families in Temecula.”

As for the recall effort, organizers have collected 243 signatures. Only 90 are required to initiate a recall, the Daily Beasted noted. 

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Eighth-graders have dropped 2 points on the NAEP civics assessment, which measures students’ knowledge of American government and opportunities to participate in civic activities, the National Center for Education Statistics announced Wednesday in the release of the latest Nation’s Report Card results. The test is based on a 0-300 scale, and eighth-graders’ scores fell from 153 in 2018 to 150 in 2022.

In 2022, only 22% of eighth-graders scored at or above proficiency in civics by demonstrating an understanding of the purpose of government, the separation of powers and “how the ideals expressed in the nation’s core documents may differ from reality,” among other concepts, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

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This first-ever decline, in which the scores were not statistically significantly different from when the current version of the test was first conducted in 1998, raises alarms about students’ grasp of democratic principles and their chances of becoming “full participants in American democracy,” Carr said.

“Self-government depends on each generation of students leaving school with a complete understanding of the responsibilities and privileges of citizenship,” Carr said. “But far too many of our students are struggling to understand and explain the importance of civic participation, how American government functions, and the historical significance of events. These results are a national concern.”

U.S. history slumps along with civics

The 13% of eighth-graders who scored at or above proficiency in U.S. history represent the lowest proficiency level of any subject assessed by the NAEP. In fact, four in 10 eighth-graders performed below the basic level as scores declined in all four of the test’s major themes—democracy, culture, technology and world role—saw declines in scores.

Meanwhile, fewer students reported taking classes mainly focused on U.S. history. Some 68% percent of eighth-graders reported taking a U.S. history class in 2022, compared to 72% in 2018.

NAEP’s U.S. history assessment, which also uses a 300-point scale, “measures students’ knowledge and understanding of U.S. history in all its complexity—its major themes, periods, events, people, ideas, and turning points,” the organization says. The history scores—except for those of the very top-performing students—have been dropping since 2014.

Here are more key findings from the eighth-grade civics and history assessments:

Civics

• Scores declined for both lower-performing and middle-performing students between 2018 and 2022. Scores did not change significantly for higher-performing students.
• There was no significant change in the average score for students in any racial or ethnic group compared to 2018.
• 31% of eighth-graders performed below the NAEP basic level in civics in 2022, compared to 27% in 2018.

History

• Scores were five points lower compared to 2018 and not statistically significantly different from the average score in 1994, when the first U.S. history assessment was given.
• Scores declined for students at the 10th, 25th, 50th, and 75th percentiles between 2018 and 2022.
• Average scores for Black, Hispanic and white students declined from 2018 to 2022.

“Now is not the time for politicians to try to extract double-digit cuts to education funding, nor is it the time to limit what students learn in U.S. history and civics classes,” U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said in a statement. “Banning history books and censoring educators from teaching these important subjects does our students a disservice and will move America in the wrong direction.”

This latest report follows the largest-ever drops in math scores for 4th- and 8th-graders recorded by the Nation’s Report Card last fall. Reading scores plummeted since the 2019 assessment, falling to levels not recorded since 1992.

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Even though an American Library Association poll found 70% of parents oppose bans, “a vocal minority” continues to target books about race and racism, gender and LGBTQ+ identities, and various periods of U.S. history. But the censorship targets appear to be expanding: Earlier this year, the movement forced the removal of books about baseball legends and civil rights heroes Hank Aaron, Roberto Clemente and Jackie Robinson from Duval County Public Schools in Florida.

During the 2021-22 school year, most book-banning campaigns were parent-led but this year, these efforts have been “supercharged” by new state censorship laws that have stoked confusion in school classrooms and libraries, PEN America says.

School administrations are feeling pressured to “err on the side of caution” and remove books when parents complain. “Many public school districts find themselves in a bind,” PEN America contends. “They face threats and political pressure, along with parental fears and anxieties surrounding the books on their school shelves.”

An escalating ‘Ed Scare’

There were 1,477 individual book bans from July to December 2022, which equates to over 100 titles removed from student access each month, PEN America says. In comparison, the organization tracked 1,149 bans from January to June 2022 and 1,383 from July to December 2021.

Books with LGBTQ+ themes and characters and characters of color have faced the most challenges, but more topics have been targeted this fall. Schools have also removed a number of books about violence and abuse, health and wellbeing, or that include instances or themes of grief and death.

Here are some of the key findings from PEN America’s most recent book ban analysis:

• 30% of the unique titles banned this fall are books about race, racism, or feature characters of color. Meanwhile, 26% of unique titles banned have LGBTQ+ characters or themes.
• This school year, instances of book bans are most prevalent in Texas, Florida, Missouri, Utah and South Carolina.
• Bans this school year are increasingly affecting a wider swath of titles, including those that portray violence and abuse (44%), discuss topics of health and wellbeing (38%), and cover death and grief (30%).
• Books are more frequently labeled “pornographic” or “indecent” by activists and politicians to justify removing books that do not fit well-established legal and colloquial definitions of “pornography.”
• This school year, numerous states enacted “wholesale bans” in which entire classrooms and school libraries have been suspended, closed, or emptied of books, either permanently or temporarily. These “wholesale bans,” have involved the culling of books that were previously available to students, in ways that are impossible to track or quantify.

“These efforts to chill speech are part of the ongoing nationwide ‘Ed Scare’—a campaign to foment anxiety and anger with the goal of suppressing free expression in public education,” PEN American concludes. “As book bans escalate, coupled with the proliferation of legislative efforts to restrict teaching about topics such as race, gender, American history, and LGBTQ+ identities, the freedom to read, learn, and think continues to be undermined for students.”

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Academic standards, accountability requirements and assessment programs—what the RAND Corporation calls the basic infrastructure of K–5 social studies instruction—are inadequate in many states, the nonprofit research organization asserts in a new report. “Concerning trends in both the United States and around the world, such as truth decay, declining trust in institutions, increased political polarization, and abuses of political power, have only underscored the need to reinvest in the civic mission of schools,” says the report’s authors, whose key findings include:

• Districts and schools provided teachers with less support for social studies compared to English language arts, math and other core subjects. In the 2021–2022 school year, elementary principals reported offering less PD focused on social studies than on English, math, and science.
• Only half of elementary school principals said their buildings or districts had adopted published curriculum materials to support K–5 social studies instruction. Teachers, therefore, tended to “cobble together” or create their own social studies lessons.
• Principals whose schools offered more extensive teacher evaluations, professional learning activities, and curriculum guidance were more likely to report that teachers collaborated on social studies instructional practices.

“Over the past few decades, school systems have invested less in students’ civic development and more in academic and career preparation as educational priorities,” said Melissa Kay Diliberti, lead author of the report and assistant policy researcher at RAND. “Our findings suggest that inadequate state and local infrastructure focused on social studies instruction may have affected what elementary teachers did in their classrooms in 2021–2022.”

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Just 16% of elementary teachers reported using a required textbook for most of their social studies instructional while about 30% of principals said their schools had not adopted social studies curriculum materials. “Even where state-level infrastructure to guide teachers’ instruction is in place, its comprehensiveness and quality vary greatly,” the authors added.

Political climates in various states are another barrier to comprehensive social studies instruction in K-5. While this has always had an impact on classrooms, educators have been increasingly intimidated by more recent pushes to restrict teaching about race, racism, discrimination, LGBTQ issues and gender identity.

Solutions for social studies instruction

To bolster instruction, district leaders can ramp up PD and teacher evaluation and feedback around social studies. Principals should commit more time to observing social studies instruction. “Principals might feel that they lack the expertise or content knowledge to identify high-quality social studies practices,” the report points out. “If so, district leaders should provide training, professional development, resources, or staff to principals to help them do that work thoughtfully.”

District leaders can also push state policymakers to develop more rigorous social studies standards that are based on national frameworks such as the C3 standards. This would likely lead to the adoption of more comprehensive social studies curriculum materials. In turn, more transparent assessments of the quality of these materials would encourage adoption by more teachers. District leaders might also prepare for states to impose tighter accountability measures around social studies achievement.

At the high school level, RAND’s researchers found more robust supports—such as teacher evaluations and instructional coaching—but that the subject still takes a backseat to English, math and other subjects.

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