A crisis is threatening America's schools, and it's unrelated to test scores, funding or how well kids can add, spell or read. It has to do with students learning to be good citizens.
For example, in the 2000 presidential election in Kentucky, less than 23 percent of people age 18 to 24 voted, compared to an overall average of 54.9 percent. In 1976, 25 percent of older students said they "followed public affairs most of the time"; by 2000, that number had dropped to 5 percent. And in 2002, only 6 percent of those under age 25 who said they volunteered did so for a political cause, party or candidate.
"We are a representative democracy, meaning the government is only going to be as good as the people (involved),'' said Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson. "When you have citizens not engaged, citizens not informed, then the process doesn't work as well as it should.''
In fact, national experts say, the lack of public participation in the political process (called civic engagement), and lack of knowledge about how and why government works (called civic literacy), is one of the biggest threats to the country's future. They blame a variety of factors, from the squeezing out of civics classes in school to a dissatisfaction among youth about how political campaigns are run.
But there's a movement nationally to restore interest in and participation in government, and Kentucky is at the forefront.
"Kentucky is head and shoulders above the other 50 states,'' said Ted McConnell, director of the National Campaign to Promote Civic Education, who cites Kentucky's school curriculum, enthusiastic participation in a variety of civics initiatives and a cadre of political leaders who see the value of citizenship.
Grayson, an attorney for Northern Kentucky, is one of those leaders. In his two years as secretary of state, he has made civic literacy a priority and has helped to organize two statewide summits.
The second of those is going on now at the Metropolitan Education and Training Center in Erlanger. The two-day summit, which ends today, should produce recommendations that will be used to develop a strategy for improving civic literacy and engagement that will be taken to the 2006 General Assembly.
Participants include about 40 people who've been working on the issue for the past year or so in Kentucky, as well as about 20 students from Northern Kentucky University who met in groups Tuesday to talk about their perceptions and experiences with government, politics and community involvement.
Venita Brewer, a Cincinnati native who is a senior in elementary education at NKU, said she initially wasn't interested in attending the summit because she and her friends had a negative impression of political involvement because of all the pressure, conflict and confrontation that accompanies it.
"We're afraid (to participate in politics),'' she said. "We see politics as either you're right or you're wrong, and we don't want to be wrong.''
But discussion at the summit showed her the need to be active and the variety of ways to do it. She, for example, is president of her sorority, which she recognizes as a leadership position. Brewer said she thought schools needed to teach the concepts of voting and government as early as grade school.
McConnell, who also stresses the need for classroom changes, said teachers have to make an effort to teach current events and to go beyond dry lectures. Civics lessons can't consist of just explanations of how a bill becomes law. "It has to be made relevant to students,'' he said. And service assignments have to go beyond mindless volunteering. Picking up garbage on the side of the road makes you feel good, but it should be followed by a classroom discussion of why people litter, the consequences of pollution and how to stop it, he said.
Changes in education will be a focus of some of the recommendations that come out of the summit. Specific areas, said Samantha Carroll, a special assistant to Grayson in the secretary of state's office, could deal with topics like adult education, targeting community groups for participation, integrating civics programs into existing school curriculum and whether civics needs to be a bigger part of assessment standards.
The civic literacy initiative has spent the year holding regional meetings to get input on these and other issues. "What we learned at the 2004 summit was that we didn't have enough education,'' Carroll said.
Grayson said he hopes the summit inspires more legislative support.
Sen. Jack Westwood, R-Crescent Springs, and Rep. Tanya Pullin, D-South Shore, have been the biggest supporters. In the 2004 session they got the ball rolling with a resolution urging Grayson's office, the Department of Education and the Administrative Office of the Courts to begin the effort, and in the 2005 session they got the legislature to designate October as Civic Literacy and Engagement Month.
But a request for $50,000 in the '05 session didn't survive the budget process, Grayson said. That reduced the marketing that could be done for the regional forums, which held down attendance, and kept the initiative from producing training videos for teachers. Grayson said he was also disappointed by sparse attendance by legislators at the meetings.
But he's not completely disappointed. Other ideas, such as curriculum changes, won't need legislative support. The Department of Education is already looking at academic content, he said, so there's a "nice window'' to get civics and social studies classes more formalized in schools.
They are, after all, the "glue for all the other subject areas,'' he said, and the reason public schools were set up in the first place.
Publication date: 10-05-2005
DEFINING CIVIC ENGAGEMENT
People who decry the lack of civic engagement are referring to the rising number of people who don't:
Register to vote.
Vote in elections, especially state and local races.
Join and actively participate in political parties.
Welcome the call to jury duty.
Volunteer for military service.
Enter public discussions about current issues, such as by writing
letters to the editor of newspapers.
Join activist organizations and campaign for social causes.
Volunteer time at church, at schools and at community service organizations.
Contribute money to political and social causes.
Help neighbors.
Stay informed about issues confronting society.
- Source: Kentucky Summit on Civic Literacy