Letter to John Bridgeland, Director of USA Freedom Corps

On October 2, 2002, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) hosted a meeting, co-sponsored by the Education Commission of the States (ECS) and the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), of education association leaders, civic education and service-learning leaders. From this meeting recommendations and a "sense of the meeting" statement were compiled in a November 1, 2002 letter to John Bridgeland, Director of USA Freedom Corps, who also attended the meeting. The following are the recommendations of the letter. To view the complete letter, please go to Letter.

"In response to your invitation to offer recommendations to strengthen the civic mission of education, we suggest the following:

• Work to reassert the primacy and purposefulness of civic education, recognizing that educating virtuous citizens is the historic purpose of American education.
• Frame the civic mission of education in ways that provide young citizens with opportunities to practice democracy, engage in service-learning, and acquire civic dispositions.
• Recognize the global context of citizenship in the 21st century.
• Make more explicit the link between civic education, service-learning, and American history.
• Connect No Child Left Behind and other important federal education initiatives to the civic mission of education.
• Challenge state policymakers to take seriously the civic mission of education.
• Showcase exemplary programs, practices, and school districts, inviting youth leaders and educators to participate in Administration-sponsored events.
• Sustain and enrich the Administration's ongoing civic education dialogue.

With warmest personal regards,

Gene R. Carter, Executive Director, ASCD

Susan Griffin, Executive Director, NCSS

Terry Pickeral, Executive Director, The Center for Learning & Democracy, ECS"