What's New in Civic Education and Youth Civic Engagement Work .... (June 2004 Archive Section)

June 30, 2004

• The National Assessment Governing Board is seeking comments on a paper titled NAEP 12th Grade World History Assessment: Issues and Options. A letter from NAGB Executive Director, Charles Smith, explains the purpose of this request in more detail. The due date for comments is July 26, 2004. Click on one of the links to read the NAEP schedule of assessment, the world history paper or the letter.

  For more information contact Mary Crovo either by email or phone (202-357-6941).
  

  June 28, 2004

• The following items on youth voting has been added to The Pew Charitable Trust's website. If you are interested in receiving regular email alerts from Pew go to http://www.pewtrusts.com.
  
  - Election Drawing Interest of Collegians - "If polls and the growth of college political groups are any indication, historically low voter turnout among young people may be on the verge of a turnaround." May 29, 2004, The Washington Times.
  
  - Music and Message - "Groups seek new ways to stem the tide of decreasing youth voter turnout." June 15, 2004, ABCnews.com.
  
  - Transitory Students Discouraged in Some States - "In certain parts of this country, college students are threatened with thousands of dollars in fines, prison sentences, or given questionnaires that ask them detailed and personal questions, all to deter the non-residents from registering to vote." June 15, 2004, Colorado Daily.
  
  

  June 25, 2004

• Graduate student scholarships are available for the Service-Learning Research Conference in Greenville, SC. The scholarships to assist graduate students who want to attend this year's Service-Learning Research Conference. The 4th Annual Conference is hosted by Clemson University and The International Center for Service-Learning in Teacher Education and will be held at the Hyatt Greenville October 10-12, 2004. Applications for the graduate student scholarships must be received no later than August 30, 2004. Scholarship winners will be notified by September 10, 2004. For complete information on these scholarships, go to the conference website at: http://www.clemson.edu/servicelearningresearch/.
  

  June 24, 2004

• The National Service-Learning Partnership announces:
  - Improving High School Civic Education. High school civics, government and social studies teachers from every part of Pennsylvania are invited to participate in the 2004-05 Pennsylvania Student Voices Project to improve civic education in high schools. For more information go click the above link.

  - Enroll In A Service-Learning Summer Institute. Over 25 Service-Learning Summer Institutes are taking place across the country over the next few months, including multiple offerings from Kids Consortium, the National Youth Leadership Council, and EarthForce, as well as six separate institutes in the state of California alone. The Partnership has collected these institute listings as a service to its members. For more information click the above link.
  

  June 23, 2004

• Ok, Grads Go Win One for Humanity. "The words that grab Robert L. Jamieson, Jr. most at this time of the year come from Horace Mann, the pre-eminent abolitionist and this nation's first great advocate of public education. In 1859, Mann said: "Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity." Now, there is nothing wrong with grads wanting to plunge into the work world to make an honest, if fat, paycheck. There's nothing wrong with them stoking their mental fires by pursuing more degrees than a thermometer. But for those to whom much is given - in terms of educational or job opportunities - much is expected. Graduates ought to consider giving back to society either in the work they choose or in the contributions they can make on the side to benefit others." Public Education Network Weekly NewsBlast, June 18, 2003.
  

  June 22, 2004

• President Bush and Sen. John Kerry Respond To National Voter Issues Paper
  from World Wrestling Entertainment®, League of Women Voters, Harvard and others

  Candidates Share Views on Jobs, the Economy, Terrorism and College Loans, Among Other Topics of Interest to 18-to 30-year-olds. "President George W. Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry have responded to The 18-30 VIP, a national voter issues paper for 18-to 30-year-olds issued by Smackdown Your Vote!®, a national effort to encourage young Americans to become active participants in their democracy and vote. The response was issued today by World Wrestling Entertainment, which has played a leadership role in Smackdown Your Vote!

  The 18-30 VIP, which covers issues important to younger voters as determined by research conducted by various organizations, including Harvard University, was submitted to both major political party campaigns. Other organizations that participated in preparing or have endorsed the VIP are the Harvard Institute of Politics, MTV's Choose or Lose, the League of Women Voters, Rock The Vote, New Voters Project, Hip-Hop Team Vote, 18to35, Declare Yourself, Youth Vote Coalition, and the University of Virginia Center for Politics." Stamford, CT - June 21, 2004. To read the entire response please click on the link above.
  

  June 17, 2004

• Education Week is running a special series of the 2004 election. The site includes access to a variety of information pertaining to the election and education including issues such as the National Assessment of Educational Progress and No Child Left Behind. For ongoing coverage of the election go to: http://www.edweek.org/sreports/special_reports_article.cfm?slug=election2004.htm.

  June 16, 2004

• The National Service-Learning Partnership has announced the following:

  - National Geographic Society Offers $5,000 Teacher Grants. The National Geographic Society Education Foundation is offering grants of up to $5,000 to service-learning practitioners for projects that focus on "cultural connections" by promoting understanding of and respect for differences between cultures, as well as explorations of young people's heritage. For more information go to:
  http://www.service-learningpartnership.org/publications/SLA_Jun2004_Funding.cfm.

  - Carnergie and Knight Announce Grants for Civic Education. The Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Knight Foundation have each announced grants of up to $1,000,000 to support the newly launched Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools. For more information go to: http://www.service-learningpartnership.org/publications/SLA_Jun2004_Funding.cfm.

  - Awards for Service-Learning Teachers. Angels in Action offers awards to service-learning teachers who work with youth ages 8-15. The winning classroom receives $10,000 and the teacher receives $1,000. For more information go to: http://www.service-learningpartnership.org/publications/SLA_Jun2004_Funding.cfm.

  June 15, 2004

• The Forum's next audio conference will focus on the opportunities and challenges of summer learning and its influence on policy and practice in the U.S. National leaders of the field will address a number of questions, including: Do Americans only view summertime as "downtime"? What are the real risks of summer learning loss and how should communities address them? Should the focus of summer learning be restricted to remediation or enrichment? Are certain populations of young people at a greater disadvantage in the summer months?

  Guest speakers for this second installment include Karen Pittman, the Forum; Ronald Fairchild, the Center for Summer Learning, Baltimore, MD; and Jane Quinn, Children's Aid Society, New York, NY.

  Register for this audio conference, to be held Tuesday, July 13 from 3:00 PM to 4:00 PM (ET), online at http://onsitepro.theconferencedepot.com/iccdocs/seminarList.shtml?tz=EST or by phone at 303.928.3133.
  

  June 14, 2004

• The newest feature on the NACE Special Focus Section: "The 12th-grade NAEP Civics Assessment is Threatened with Termination." The selection provides background on the NAEP in general, the NAEP Civics Assessment, its future, and offers an opportunity for you to provide comments. To read more, please click on the link above.
  

  June 11, 2004

• The Dirksen Congressional Center's Communicator, an e-newletter, provides educators with news and ideas to improve the understanding of Congress:

  - In addition to two 2004 presidential websites, George Bush and John Kerry there are literally hundreds of campaign and election-related sites. For more information the Dirksen Center has created three sections of its AboutGovernment Web site devoted to politics.

  - The "Politics" section lists more than a dozen sites. The Politics1 is one of the most comprehensive one-stop site for political topics. It is published as a non-partisan public service to promote fully informed decision-making by the American electorate. Traffic statistics show that Politics1 continues to be one of the most popular political sites on the net. According to the WebTrends traffic report (for the period ending April 3, 2004), Politics1 is recording over 450,000 unique user sessions, 921,000 page views, and 11.3 million hits per month.

  - The "Political Parties" section links to the major political parties, as well as more obscure ones. Nearly twenty sites in the "Elections and Voting" section deal with electoral processes such as campaign finance, voter registration, and the Electoral College.
  

  June 9, 2004

• The National League of Cities offers a kit to re-engage disconnected youth. This kit contains a wealth of new policy and program ideas for municipal leaders and draws upon the latest research and best practices from across the nation. It includes sections on education, workforce connections, transitions, and system building for disconnected youth. The kit also can be downloaded from National League of Cities website or by sending a request to iyef@nlc.org or leaving a message at 202/626-3014. For more information go to: http://www.nlc.org/nlc_org/site.

  June 8, 2004

• The National Service-Learning Partnership announces:
  
  - Citizenship Education Takes a Step Forward in Maine. A study commissioned in Maine recommended that the state's department of education integrate civic participation skills throughout the stateâ??s academic standards.

  - Lowering the Voting Age Issue Brief Released. A new issue brief from the Education
  Commission of the States National Center for Learning and Citizenship explores legislation and initiatives in 10 states aimed at lowering the voting age.
  

  June 7 , 2004

• The Alliance for Representative Democracy's Campaign to Promote Civic Education at the Center for Civic Education has shared more updates on their work:

  - The Alliance partners are involved with and strongly support the Campaign for the Civic Mission of the Schools, an effort to implement the recommendations of the Carnegie/Circle Report, "The Civic Mission of Schools."

  - Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) entitled "Throwing a Better Party: Local Mobilizing Institutions & the Youth Vote," looks at the results of a survey of more than 800 local party officials, Among its findings is that "local party leaders perceive youth disengagement as a critical problem." The full report can be found at http://www.civicyouth.org.
  

  For more information about the Campaign to Promote Civic Education and other resources go to: http://www.representativedemocracy.org.
  

  June 4 , 2004

• Forum Focus, a regular publication of the Forum for Youth Investment, is published five times a year and circulated as an insert in Youth Today, the newspaper that has chronicled the allied youth fields for more than a decade. Each issue focuses on a cross-cutting topic that speaks to audiences across the allied youth fields and brings readers research updates, on the ground examples, interviews with key leaders and resource lists. Download a copy of the recent edition of Forum Focus, Youth Act, Community Impact, from www.forumforyouthinvestment.org/focus/focusv2i2may04.pdf (7-page PDF). Back issues of Forum Focus can be downloaded at: www.forumforyouthinvestment.org/forumfocus.htm.

  June 3, 2004

• A reminder that of the Centre for Policy and Practice call for papers for the Conference on Civic Education Research to be held in Reno Nevada, Hilton Hotel, September 26-28, 2004. This interdisciplinary conference will draw together researchers with a common interest in civic education. This research would include work on service-learning, moral education, character education, democratic education, policy research, and studies of the citizens' civic capacity and skills. The conference will draw faculty from around the United States as well as from around the world, including faculty from the fields of education, political science, sociology, psychology, anthropology, criminology, public policy, evaluation, as well as practitioners and policy makers interested in research and best practices. The deadline to submit proposals is 6/15/04.

  Also, a separate Practitioners' Conference on Civic Education will be offered in New Orleans, from January 13-15, 2005. For more information go to: http://www.civicedconf.org/practice.html.

  For more information on the conference, including hotel information, travel information, registration information, presentation formats and to submit a proposal on-line, please go to the website: http://www.civicedconf.org/research.html
  

  June 2 , 2004

• The Civic Mind has announced its award to American Rhetoric and other updates. CivicMind Awards recognize organizations that energize civic participation, improve education about government and the legal system, and strengthen nonprofit community-based organizations:
  
  - American Rhetoric is an online database of 5,000 full text, audio and video streaming versions of public speeches, sermons, legal proceedings, lectures, debates, interviews, and other recorded media events including the 100 most significant American political speeches of the 20th century.
  - Workshop Materials. Sample materials from CivicMind workshops are now available. To obtain permission to reproduce workshop materials with the copyright notice for educational purposes, please send an email to TheCivicMind@aol.com.
  

  June 1, 2004

• The recent edition of PS: Political Science and Politics contains a symposium on the "Politics of Civic Education." The contents include:
  - Introduction, by Joel Westheimer
  - Making Public Schools Business-Like . . . Again, by Larry Cuban
  - Educating the "Good" Citizen: Political Choices and Pedagogical Goals, by Joel Westheimer and Joseph Kahne
  - Negotiating the Politics of Citizenship Education, by E. Wayne Ross
  - Diversity, Immigration, and the Politics of Civic Education, by Jane Junn
  - Controversies about Controversial Issues in Democratic Education, Diana E. Hess
  - Civic Education and Political Participation, by William A. Galston

  For more information go to: http://www.apsanet.org/ps/april04/toc.cfm.