The January 6th insurrection at the Capitol brought me back to the cumbersome quiet of that NYC classroom 20 years ago and a question: Are today's teachers better equipped to address immediate events that will come to shape our history?

The Capitol attack has rightfully led to many calls for teachers to address civic education in a much more robust way in their classrooms. However, a national teacher survey that we fielded through the RAND American Teacher Panel last year to social studies teachers—who might be most likely to address civic education in the classroom—suggests teachers lack critical training and incentives to do that.

In our survey, we asked teachers about a range of civic development instructional practices that they might bring into their classroom instruction—drawing upon definitions of civic development developed over the past decade—including discussion of current and controversial events, media literacy, and support for students' social and emotional learning.

Our findings painted a concerning picture of K–12 teachers' capacity to address civic education:

  • Teachers lack the training and instructional resources to support students' civic development. Roughly half of all elementary school social studies teachers (who typically teach all subjects) and between 30 and 40 percent of secondary social studies teachers had not received any teacher preparation or in-service training on how to support students' civic development.
  • Pressure to address tested subjects reduces time on civic education. Nearly three quarters of elementary teachers and 40 percent of secondary social studies teachers indicated the pressure to cover English and math content was an obstacle to supporting their students' civic development.

The rise of the internet has helped to provide a growing number of free civic development resources for teachers.  A second critical step would be to ensure that teachers have good instructional resources aligned with civic development standards.

Read the full article about civics education by Julia H. Kaufman at RAND Corporation.