What's New in Civic Education and Youth Civic Engagement Work .... (July/August 2006 Archive Section)

February 28, 2007


The Public Education Network (PEN) announces the following:

Eight for 2008: Education Policy Guidebook for Presidential Candidates

Education remains a top 10 priority for the American people even during a divisive war and amid competing national concerns, according to the Gallup Poll. It is especially salient for today's presidential candidates because the historic No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) has increased Washington's influence over and responsibility for local schools to unprecedented heights. And with stubbornly persistent racial and income gaps in student outcomes, it is clear that too many public schools still are not the engines of equal opportunity they should be. In a new report, Education Sector offers eight education ideas for the 2008 presidential campaign. They cover the educational spectrum, from preschool to higher education. They range in scope from big ideas that would chart entirely new directions for policymaking to others that would simply help schools and colleges improve what they are already doing. These ideas are neither Democratic nor Republican. They are pragmatic solutions to real problems that both parties can get behind. They have realistic goals and price tags. The eight ideas include: (1) Unlock the Pre-K Door; (2) Offer Teachers a New Deal; (3) Create a National Corps of "SuperPrincipals"; (3) Open New Schools in Low-Income Neighborhoods; (4) Launch Learning into the 21st Century; (5) Reward Hard-Working Immigrant Students; (6) Give Students a Roadmap to Good Colleges; and (7) Help Students Help Others.

For more go to: http://www.educationsector.org/research/research_show.htm?doc_id=464943.


February 26, 2007


The U.S. Department of Education announces the following grant opportunity:

Grant Competition for the Cooperative Civic Education and Economic Education Exchange Program (Federal Register: February 16, 2007 [CFDA# 84.304A])

Purpose of Program: The Cooperative Civic Education and Economic Education Exchange Program provides grants to improve the quality of civic education through cooperative civic education exchange programs with emerging democracies.
- Applications Available: February 16, 2007.
- Deadline for Transmittal of Applications: April 2, 2007.
- Eligible Applicants: Organizations in the United States experienced in the development of curricula and programs in civic and government education and economic education for students in elementary schools and secondary schools in countries other than the United States, to carry out civic education activities.
- Estimated Range of Awards: $500,000-$1,000,000;
- Estimated Average Size of Awards: $1,000,000;
- Estimated Number of Awards: 1-2.

Additional Information: Applicable regulations, priorities, and other information are available in the Federal Register notice.

Additional information is available online at: http://www.ed.gov/legislation/FedRegister/announcements/2007-1/021607i.html


February 21, 2007


Skills and Dispositions

"The arrival of a new year always generates, at least in aging school principals, a cerebral expedition for an annual symbol. What can possibly encapsulate the hopes, dreams, frustration, and passions that lie ahead for our school community in 2007?

One night in January, at a faculty colleague's suggestion, I spent 20 minutes listening to an audio recording that has been rocketing around the Internet. It purports to be an unedited copy of a young man's dialogue with a series of customer-service representatives as he attempts to untangle his cellphone bill. In a nutshell, the listener learns that no one at this giant telecommunications company understands how to use a decimal point. Simultaneously hilarious and depressing, the recording sounds genuine.

And even if it isn't, the growing sense of consumer frustration, the bewildered and unhelpful bureaucratic bumbling of the "service department," and the fundamental, appalling lack of basic numeracy strike a telling chord. We've all been there, "on hold" literally and figuratively, desperate to navigate the shoals of incompetence.
Still, in 2007, the dumbing down of America is not front-page news in my local paper or anywhere else. The fact that, even at the highest circles of "service response" in a global communications company, employees cannot comprehend the significance of decimals and place value merely reminds us of other recent commentary on America's workforce: "If you can recognize the french-fries icon on the register keys, you're educated enough"-at least to work at a fast-food enterprise. The active vocabulary of an American 14-year-old is 20 percent of what it was 60 years ago. If Americans read at all, they read USA Today or People. Better than The Star, I suppose. What is Britney up to these days?

The real question prompted in my mind by the Internet recording was this: Why do families entrust their children to a school such as ours? There are obvious answers beyond everyone's reasonable expectation that teachers will make sure that, at the end of the experience, students can read, write, express themselves, and cipher-that is, that they will comprehend the meaning and power of a decimal point, in math class, in an engineering calculation, in a checkbook, on a telephone bill, in life. But education-especially at the elementary level-is as much about "dispositions" as it is about skills; it's about developing attitudes and approaches that color a lifetime. It's not just how to read (or calculate, or speak to an audience, or collaborate with a partner to solve a problem); it's learning the lifelong value of reading, developing the habits of open-mindedness, of sharing, of discerning, of thinking about others. Skills, after all, are black-and-white; dispositions add the color…" By Nicholas S. Thacher, Feb. 7, 2007, Education Week.


February 20, 2007


• The Public Education Network (PEN) announces the following:

  "Playground Heroes: How Can We Teach Kids To Stick Up For Their Peers Who Are Bullied?"

  - In "Playground Heroes" in the latest issue of Greater Good magazine, researchers Ken Rigby and Bruce Johnson make clear that research has not only documented the great prevalence of bullying at schools; it's also shown that quite often, children serve as passive bystanders to bullying. They neither join in the bullying nor try to stop it, but just watch it from the sidelines. Yet when these observers do intervene, more often than not they're successful in stopping the bullying. So why don't they intervene -- and perhaps more importantly, how can parents and teachers effectively encourage them to intervene when it's appropriate for them to do so? Drawing on the results from a six-country study that they ran, called the International Bystander Project, Rigby and Johnson offer concrete strategies for helping children act on their best intentions. For more go to: http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/greatergood/current_issue/rigbyjohnson.html.
  

  February 19, 2007
  
  

A Lesson in Government From Behind the Scenes

"Just before noon one recent day, a group of middle school students rushed into the building where Virginia's General Assembly meets. They had one question on their minds.

"Does anyone know the soup of the day?" one boy yelled.

Thomas Cohen, 13, ran down the steps to Chicken's, a tiny basement restaurant. He checked the menu and scrawled "Chicken Gumbo" and "Beef Noodle" on a notepad he'd pulled from the pocket of his navy blue blazer.

Thomas, a seventh-grader at Fairfax County's Frost Middle School, is one of 72 middle school students from across the Old Dominion who are spending seven weeks here in the state capital fetching lunch, copying documents and stuffing envelopes for lawmakers. Between deliveries of soup and stationery, they're also getting an up-close look at democracy. The capital becomes their classroom, with lessons in state government more vivid than any they get in school..." Maria Glod, 1/19/2007, The Washington Post.


February 9, 2007

• The Compass Institute in collaboration with the National Service-Learning Partnership at the Academy for Educational Development are pleased to announce the creation of the Service-Learning Providers Network.

  Why: To strengthen the quality of service-learning practice through improved professional education. The network's vision is to ensure that every person that provides service-learning professional education and technical assistance possesses the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and materials to design and deliver transformative and lasting staff development.

  Who: Service-learning consultants and staff developers; service-learning trainers working with schools; community-based organizations as well as those working with institutions of higher education; teacher mentors; administrators; community-based organization trainers; service-learning technical assistance providers; and service-learning organization training directors among others.

  What: Through in-person and virtual opportunities, a peer-to-peer learning network will help people connect. Members of the network will be able to utilize a professional development library that houses tools for training and technical assistance. In addition, local staff developers will have the opportunity to contribute their own expertise to help their peers.

  They are asking those that provide professional education to complete a 10-minute online survey to help guide next steps in designing materials and networks that are responsive to the field's needs. Please complete the survey by no later than February 28, 2007.   Results will be shared on the Partnership's website.

  For those attending the National Service-Learning Conference in New Mexico in March, there will be a workshop on the Providers' Network called "Overcoming the Achilles Heal of Service-Learning: How to Ensure Practice Excellence."

  The Providers' Network is being lead by Drs. James and Pamela Toole of Compass Institute and the University of Minnesota College of Education and School of Social Work.  There is also a 15-person advisory team representing a diverse and talented cross-section of the service-learning field.  If you have any questions, contact toole003@umn.edu or go to p-toole@comcast.net for more information.

  February 7, 2007

• The Center for Civic Education has received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to host a three-week Institute at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. The Institute is entitled Political and Constitutional Theory for Citizens: The National Academy for Civics and Government. The Insitute will take place July 7-28, 2007, and all expenses for travel, books, and per diem are covered by the grant, with a modest amount left over for a stipend.
  
  Access information on the Institute on the Center's website at www.civiced.org by clicking on the link for the NEH Institute for Political and Constitutional Theory under "Recent Updates." At the site is the Application for 2007, a brochure on the program, and the Course Outline and Agenda for the 2006 Institute, both of which will be revised only slightly for 2007.
  

  February 6, 2007

• The Public Education Network (PEN) announces the following:

  Grants to Increase Impact of Service-Learning Projects on Climate Change - Youth Service America and the Civil Society Institute are awarding Red, White, and Green Climate Change Grants to design a service-learning project that promotes awareness about climate change and possible solutions. Projects should be youth-led, and the service must take place between May 1 and October 31, 2007. Maximum Award: $500. Eligibility: youth between the ages of 15-25 or to organizations that serve engage youth ages 15-25. Deadline: March 9, 2007. For more go to: http://www.ysa.org/awards/.

  February 5, 2007

• CIRCLE announces: High School Civic Engagement Activities Produce Academic Benefits

  New CIRCLE research by Professors Alberto Dávila and Marie T. Mora suggests that participation in voluntary community service, service-learning, and student government activities during the high school years enhance academic achievement. In two new CIRCLE Working Papers Dávila and Mora, using data from the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS), find that those civic engagement activities raise the odds of graduation from college and improve high school students' progress in reading, math, science and history. For example, they estimate that service experiences—when required as part of high school courses—raise the odds of graduation from college by 22 percentage points.

  While the impact appears to be universally positive, different types of activities affect demographic groups in distinct ways. Young men, for instance, appear to make greater academic gains when they participate in service activities : they are 29 percentage points more likely to graduate from college on time if they have engaged in service to fulfill a class requirement during high school, controlling for the other factors measured in NELS. Student government activities seem to produce the strongest effects on female students.

  For more download the following:

  - CIRCLE Fact Sheet "An Assessment of Civic Engagement and Educational Attainment"

  - CIRCLE Working Paper (#52) Civic Engagement and High School Academic Progress

  - CIRCLE Working Paper (#53) Do Gender and Ethnicity Affect Civic Engagement and Academic Progress?

  February 2, 2007

• The following has been added to Pew Charitable Trust's Youth Civic Initiatives (Pew Prospectus 2007):

  - The Civic Initiatives program seeks to educate the American public about the concepts of liberty and individual freedom that are tightly bound up in Philadelphia's early history.

  For more go to: http://www.pewtrusts.org/ideas/ideas_item.cfm?content_item_id=3895&content_type_id=17&issue_name=Civic%20initiatives&issue=41&page=17&WT.mc_id=01/22/2007

  February 1, 2007

• The Public Education Network (PEN) announces the following:

  Grants to Promote Neighborhood Safety - MetLife Foundation and the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) are partnering to recognize the work of innovative partnerships between community groups and police to promote neighborhood safety and revitalization. Maximum Award: $25,000. Eligibility: member organizations of partnerships that include, but need not be limited to, community organizations and police. Deadline: February 23, 2007. For more go to: http://www.lisc.org/section/areas/sec1/safety/awards/.