Forming engaged citizens: How to strengthen civic knowledge, open-mindedness and democracy in Washington public schools
Key Findings
- Public schools are failing to teach basic civics and U.S. History.
- Washington’s Social Studies standards lack subject matter content, inhibiting student learning.
- These weak standards have allowed radical left-leaning activists to promote false academic content from radical Critical Race Theory (CRT) ideology.
- The CRT approach promotes distrust and division within communities, which in turn leads many students to hate their own country.
- Producing ill-informed, isolated and disaffected citizens is not the goal of a healthy public education system, and dangerous to our democracy.
- Students need access to a non-partisan civics curriculum that is true, high-quality and essential to living in a democracy.
- A national model, The American Birthright, provides a curriculum with the full and accurate history of America.
- Students deserve to know their country was founded upon the humanitarian ideals of individual rights and liberty for all, not to promote the institution of slavery.
Introduction
National research finds that public schools are failing to teach students basic civics and U.S. history, leaving young people ignorant about their own country and ill-equipped to participate as free citizens in the practice of self-government and modern democracy. This harmful trend is particularly strong in Washington state, where public officials have in the past and continue to weaken learning standards for children assigned to the public schools.
In 2019, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation conducted a 50-state survey of 41,000 Americans and found that only 27 percent of those under age 45 could demonstrate a basic understanding of American history. Washington ranked 30th in this survey, revealing it as one of the worst states in the nation in teaching basic civics to children.
Foundation president Arthur Levine says the study:
“...validates what studies have shown for a century: Americans don’t possess the [historical] knowledge they need to be informed and engaged citizens.”
A major reason Washington ranked so low in this national survey is the state’s weak Social Studies learning standards.
Washington’s Social Studies learning standards do not provide teachers the facts, names and events students are expected to know from U.S. and Washington state history, economics, civics and geography. The content vacuum created by these weak learning standards inhibits student learning.
Worse, the weak standard allows radical left-leaning activists to promote false academic content from radical Critical Race Theory (CRT) ideology. Political activism inserted into what is supposed to be a nonpartisan curriculum blocks students from accessing civics knowledge that is true, high-quality and essential to living in a democracy.
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