Bridge partisan divide to support civics education
We began 2021 with the promise of bipartisan movement to address our nation’s civic education crisis. Two high profile initiatives provided a road map and potential funding for drastically improving how we teach civics in our country.
However, a volatile debate over how to discuss issues of race within the classroom has threatened to derail these efforts. It is imperative that we work across party and ideological aisles to chart a path forward.
The first initiative is the Educating for American Democracy (EAD) project. It brought together more than 300 experts from various viewpoints and races. They prepared a road map that gives guidance that any state department of education and its local school districts can utilize to implement modern, inclusive civic education that will work for students from households of all income levels, as well as students from diverse academic achievement levels.
The second is the Civics Secures Democracy Act (CSD). Sponsored in the Senate by Republican John Cornyn and Democrat Chris Coons, and in the House by Republican Tom Cole and Democrats Rosa DeLauro and Earl Blumenauer, the bill would bring $1 billion annually to civic education and reverse a generations’ long neglect of civic education.
The bipartisan work on
CSD is now in jeopardy in part because in April the Department of Education submitted to the Federal Register a document with references to the 1619 Project, Ibram Kendi’s anti-racism work, and resources broadly defining systemic racism. The more than 34,000 public responses to it are mostly negative.
More concerning is that some of my fellow Republicans and conservatives are using the Department of Education’s proposed rules to inaccurately paint the CSD as a Trojan horse leading children and adults to a racial Armageddon in American schools, and to persuade current and future Republican co-sponsors to back off of the bill. At the same time, some on the right have responded to the Education Department’s proposed rules by enactment of anti-critical race theory bills in several different state legislatures.
Racism in America is real. Conservatives and liberals should be vigilant to address it, and our public schoolhouse is just one institution in which to do so. But restricting what educators can and cannot discuss about race in our classrooms at the local level or waving a flag of fear to persuade Capitol Hill lawmakers to move away from a common ground approach K-12 policy, is the antithesis of the civic education we need for such a time as this.
Having led a statewide K-12 education agenda for two Republican governors, I agree with those who do not want Washington dictating what states must teach. At the same time, I have also seen firsthand that some conservatives’ concern of Washington liberals using local classrooms to push a progressive agenda are at times overblown. The reality is that thousands of hardworking teachers are trying to present balanced views about our civic institutions, and complicated current events, with limited time and resources. CSD would elevate their work through a generational investment in evidence-based K-12 civic education.
These are the facts regarding the Department of Education, CSD and the states:
1. Claims that the Biden administration would use CSD to nationalize curriculum or force all public and private schools to use a curriculum such as the 1619 project are simply unfounded. The CSD Act specifically prohibits Education Department from prescribing any curriculum, and if passed, state and local control of curriculum will continue consistent with state priorities.
2. The Department of Educations’ proposed rules have nothing to do with CSD. It relates to a small $3 million program that is not connected to the $1 billion in funds CSD would provide.
3. And on Friday, the Education Department worked to allay some of the concern when it released an updated document that omits two references some people found troubling, and made clear that all decisions on curriculum are up to the states.
In closing, I ask conservatives and liberals to return to the work of creating a pathway forward on civic education before a once-in-a-generation moment passes us by.