Resolute is the Civics Alliance’s newsletter, informing you about the most urgent issues in civics education. Above all, Resolute will provide information about federal and state legislation that seeks to impose action civics, or to preserve traditional civics.
The SAT is changing. “Critical Social Justice” is being taught in Idaho. Minority students were taught ethnic studies in California—and they hated it. With every new day, there’s a new story about education in the United States, and now, the Civics Alliance provides even more tools to help navigate this strange new policy landscape.
New Website
The official release of the Civics Alliance website is coming soon, but the provisional version is already up and running. You can now find much of the Alliance’s work and material there. This includes our Partisanship Out of Civics Act, Model Acts to Enhance K-12 Civics Education, and Model Higher Education Code. These bills seek to eliminate overt indoctrination and action civics from public schools and to reform public universities. They use legislative language already passed in several states. Each state has different laws pertaining to civics. The Civics Alliance offers these model bills to give citizens and lawmakers a range of policy options.
Civics Bill Tracker
As we’ve noted in previous issues of Resolute, state legislatures across the country have introduced dozens of new bills. To name yet another recent example, Missouri’s Senate Bill 740 takes aim at action civics specifically.
To navigate the policy landscape, one Civics Alliance tool will prove especially helpful: Our Civics Bill Tracker. The tool provides a detailed assessment of all the new civics bills—the good, the bad, and the neutral—across the nation.
Even in Idaho
The Idaho Freedom Foundation just released another report on Critical Social Justice, this time focusing on its prevalence in Idaho itself. Anna Miller and Scott Yenor begin the report by noting that “Critical Social Justice (CSJ) is written into the DNA of Idaho’s public education system.” At this point, Resolute readers won’t be surprised.
Meanwhile in Tennessee
Tennessee’s Governor Bill Lee, according to the Tennessean, “is budgeting $6 million to create an ‘Institute of American Civics’ at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.” This is an encouraging development—though the proof, as always, is in the practice. But no matter what, anyone interested in the state of education would be wise to pay attention to Tennessee.
Other Education News
The SAT is Going Digital. (Somewhere, the next William Rick Singer is doing a little dance for joy.)
And: Hispanic Students Were Forced To Learn Critical Race Theory. They Hated It.
Civics Alliance State Affiliates
The Civics Alliance would like to build up a network of state affiliates—groups dedicated to removing action civics in their state, whom we would list on our forthcoming website. If you would like to form such an organization, or suggest an existing organization, please get in touch with David Randall (randall@nas.org).
Continuing Priorities: Federal Legislation
At the federal level, the Civics Secures Democracy Act threatens to impose action civics nationwide.
The Civics Bill Tracker
Civics Alliance members may now use the Civics Bill Tracker to track all proposed federal and state legislation related to civics.
Public Action
We encourage Civics Alliance members to inform the public and policymakers about the stakes and consequences of action civics bills.
John Sailer is a Research Associate at the National Association of Scholars and serves as Keeping the Republic Project Lead.
Image: F1Digitals, Public Domain
