by Jan Goehring
This weekend we will be reporting from the Fourth Annual Congressional Conference on Civic Education in Washington, D.C. The conference is sponsored by the Alliance for Representative Democracy, a partnership of the Center for Civic Education, the National Conference of State Legislatures and the Center on Congress at Indiana University. Delegations of high-level state policy makers, educators, judiciary and executive branch representatives from each state come to the conference to learn about issues in civic education and to develop state action plans to restore the civic mission of schools.
A preconference session for first time attendees provided background about civic education. "Research shows the overwhelming unity of civic knowledge on the one hand and civic engagement on the other," says Margaret Branson, Associate Director of the Center for Civic Education. Civic education needs to be more than the nuts and bolts of how the system works, it also needs to be an invitation for young people to participate. Because they will participate if asked.
State legislators should be involved in helping restore the civic mission of schools because it "serves their interests," says Karl Kurtz, director of the NCSL Trust for Representative Democracy. Public cynicism is what legislators like least about the job so if we improve cynicism through education, then the quality of the job is better and it is positive for the institution, he added.
"This is what I should be doing," says Trey Grayson, Secretary of State for Kentucky. "We need to get more students engaged and need more informed voters. The Congressional Conference on Civic Education offers a great framework for forming coalitions to conduct civic education activities."
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