The second week of March is Civic Learning Week. It’s an annual observance marked by civics advocates with webinars, social media campaigns, and a big conference known as the National Forum, organized by the nonprofit iCivics. This year’s National Forum will take place in Philadelphia, as more than 600 civics leaders, educators, and students will gather to consider the theme of “Liberty and Learning: Civic Education at 250.”
Indeed, this year’s Civic Learning Week is an even bigger deal than usual, as we celebrate the nation’s quarter-millennium anniversary. Civics should be the top item on our national agenda.
Civic education should matter to every American. It is more than a set of facts that eighth graders should know for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (only 22 percent of eighth graders were proficient in civics, and 13 percent were proficient in history in the most recent scoring). Rather, civic education is best understood as a lifelong commitment to the study and practice of America’s distinctive political tradition of self-government.
For all that should give us reason for worry in our country, the good news is that momentum is quickly growing in the movement for what the Princeton-based Institute for Citizens and Scholars calls “civic preparedness.” At all levels of education, institutions and philanthropists are partnering to support a renewed focus on civics.
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