Developing good citizens: Board approves standards for new civics education course for Indiana middle schoolers | Local News

A regulation handed in 2021 makes civics education a required class in middle faculty, and earlier this month, the state Board of Education authorized the educational standards for that new course.

Middle faculty college students will take the course the second semester of sixth grade, efficient with the 2023-24 faculty 12 months.

School districts may have flexibility in how they train these standards and what particular matters they may wish to handle, state officers say.

“It’s important to note that standards are not curriculum. The state sets academic standards, and then schools develop curriculum to teach those standards,” mentioned Holly Lawson, Indiana Department of Education spokeswoman. “Local context is key as schools establish the curriculum that best meets their needs.”

The standards cowl foundations of presidency, perform of presidency and function of residents. Some present examples, though most don’t.

One normal calls for college students to explain and provides examples of particular person rights assured by the Bill of Rights. Examples embody freedom of faith, speech, meeting, the correct to due course of in addition to the correct to be shielded from unreasonable search and seizure.

Yet one other, underneath “role of citizens,” calls for college students to make use of a wide range of informational assets to establish and consider modern points that contain civic duty, particular person rights and the frequent good.

Examples listed embody accountable use of the web; smoking in public locations; cost of property taxes; growth of highways; and housing on historic lands.

Many of the standards are basic and lack specifics or examples. Some observers elevate issues the standards don’t handle the historical past of Black Americans and different individuals of coloration.

Crystal Reynolds, who often writes in regards to the historical past of minority teams and people in Vigo County, mentioned civics instruction is vital.

Students have to be taught extra in regards to the Constitution and the way native, state and federal authorities operates. “We’ve really got to do better at educating our young people to make them educated voters and good citizens,” she mentioned.

Indiana ranks close to the underside nationwide in voter turnout.

But civics additionally “has got to be taught with diversity in mind,” Reynolds mentioned. The U.S. Constitution “is a beautiful constitution, but it was also a flawed constitution” that by no means talked about the phrase slavery.

Civics education wants to incorporate why the thirteenth and 14th amendments have been needed, she mentioned. The thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, whereas the 14th Amendment gave citizenship to all individuals born within the U.S. The fifteenth modification offered that the correct to vote couldn’t be denied based mostly on “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

The Constitution founding paperwork additionally overlooked girls, Reynolds mentioned.

State Rep. Tonya Pfaff, D-Terre Haute, and a trainer, is a member of the Civics Education Commission that reviewed the civics standards.

The new sixth-grade course is designed to permit faculty districts the flexibleness to resolve what civics matters greatest meet the wants of their group, reasonably than the state mandating what’s taught, Pfaff mentioned.

She advocated for a middle faculty civics course and believes ready till highschool is simply too late. “The earlier we can get our students educated about how our political structure works and affects them, the better informed they will be and hopefully more likely to be engaged as a citizen,” she mentioned.

An outdoors view

The Fordham Institute, a nonprofit conservative assume tank, gave Indiana comparatively excessive marks for the standard of its civics and U.S. historical past programs in a 2021 evaluation, based on Chalkbeat Indiana. One weak spot cited within the report, nonetheless, was that the standards present “little attention to Indiana’s past legal discrimination.”

He has some issues the middle faculty adjustments might have “marginalized geography and maybe a little bit of economics.”

McGrew provides, “At least we’re heading down the right path. We’re starting to say in the state of Indiana that social studies is important. Civics education is important,” McGrew mentioned.

The writer of the invoice requiring the middle faculty class, Rep. Tony Cook, R-Cicero — a retired faculty superintendent and authorities trainer — additionally serves on the Civics Commission.

According to Chalkbeat Indiana, throughout a May assembly through which IDOE introduced the standards to the Commission, Cook advisable including extra specificity to the standards, citing examples such because the Supreme Court rulings Brown v. Board of Education, which ended legalized faculty segregation, Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion and Miranda v. Arizona, which upheld Fifth Amendment rights.

While Cook was not accessible for an interview with the Tribune-Star, he offered an announcement:

“As a former government and U.S. history teacher, principal and superintendent, I knew that Hoosier teachers would both want and need resource guides. This includes a list of specific documents that are critical to understanding our country, its founding and our continuing efforts to make it a more perfect union. I recently had a productive conversation with the Indiana Department of Education on outreach efforts, and reviewed the standards for this newly required course. I feel confident that we’re going to achieve the intent of the law, which is to ensure future generations are educated and engaged, and responsibly practice their civic duties and interests.”

Others reacting to the standards embody Linda Hanson, co president of the League of Women Voters of Indiana.

“We applaud the proposed civics standards as the impetus for preparing students to participate effectively in a democracy. It is our hope that the one semester in sixth grade will be augmented by further opportunity for civics education,” she mentioned.

Carolyn Callecod, president of the Vigo County League of Women Voters, mentioned the league is a corporation based on the mission of civics education. “It is imperative that our future generations educate themselves and understand the most important contract in their lives, the U.S. Constitution,” she mentioned.

The Constitution emerged to what it’s immediately via an extended historical past of hard-fought wars, she mentioned. From the Revolutionary War to the Civil War, to the battle for girls’s proper to vote and civil rights, “People have fought to preserve the ideals in the U.S. Constitution and unite and strengthen our democracy,” Callecod mentioned.

“We hope that the teaching of civics to our students will not only educate them on the details of the Constitution, but will incorporate the hard-fought struggles that make our country the unique democracy that it is today,” she mentioned.

Sue Loughlin may be reached at 812-231-4235 or at sue.loughlin@tribstar.com Follow Sue on Twitter @TribStarSue.