Civics, Elementary School and Government

OPINION: During civic learning week, let’s push for national progress toward a more perfect union

The Hechinger Report

MARCH 11, 2025

National pride in America is at a record low, coinciding with desperately low scores on the nations civics report card from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). This week is National Civic Learning Week , when thousands of Americans will demonstrate just how we can do this. Related: Become a lifelong learner.

Civics

Civics K-12 Middle School High School

OPINION: How can teachers help students grapple with the chaos surrounding us?

The Hechinger Report

SEPTEMBER 28, 2020

No matter whether elementary teachers return to physical or virtual classrooms, this will be a year for the history books. What’s less clear is how prepared elementary school teachers are to put these seismic events into context. This is not a problem of higher education’s making, but a failure of public education writ large.

K-12

K-12 Civics Social Studies Geography

His Teachers Showed Him Why History Matters. Now He Wants to Pay That Forward.

ED Surge

OCTOBER 9, 2023

Brown loves — and has long loved — learning about history, civics, geography and government, in part because he had teachers who brought infectious energy and enthusiasm to those lessons. I did go into an elementary school and I learned that I did not want to be an elementary school teacher.

History

History Museum Social Studies Geography

A study finds promise in project-based learning for young low-income children

The Hechinger Report

AUGUST 27, 2018

studied civics in the fall of 2016, they began by exploring a nearby park in Pontiac. They created multicolored posters to explain what different departments of local government do, from sanitation to human resources. When a classroom of second graders in Waterford, Mich., The curriculum development was the subject of a 2012 paper.)

Project-Based Learning

Project-Based Learning Civics Historic Sites Social Studies

OPINION: Can this 12-step program from Finland aid U.S. education?

The Hechinger Report

NOVEMBER 18, 2018

As we traveled through Finland, we met with top government officials, education professors, classroom teachers and elementary-school students. Create an emotional atmosphere and physical environment of warmth, comfort and safety so that children are happy and eager to come to school. 6) Make homework efficient.

Education

Education Economics Civics Government

What I Learned From My Students Who Became Teachers

ED Surge

APRIL 12, 2023

Even more astonishing, five of my former students decided to become high school history teachers, just like me: Paula Katrina Camaya : a former Chicago Public Schools educator currently teaching civics and humanities at Evanston Township High School (ETHS) in Evanston, Illinois. This is her third year in the profession.

World History

World History World Religions Civics History

How to improve schooling during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to students

The Hechinger Report

NOVEMBER 2, 2020

A survey of over 20,000 students conducted May through June found that only 39 percent of students said they learned a lot every day while their school building was closed. Summer break gave school leaders time to reflect on the lessons of the spring and create more effective reopening plans for the fall. Credit: Corinne Livingston.

High School

High School Elementary School Charter School History

TEACHER VOICE: What was troubling enough as 20th century history is happening in the present time

The Hechinger Report

AUGUST 21, 2017

This work needs to begin in elementary school, where students’ ideas about their place in the world are shaped. Here are some ways to do that in elementary school classrooms: First and foremost, it is vital that young people have a place to process disturbing news and to be reassured that their lives matter and that they are safe.

History

History Elementary School Library Civics

How one Mississippi district made integration work

The Hechinger Report

APRIL 18, 2016

The district’s first school board meeting on August 3, 1970, had 19 agenda items, including determining the district’s sick leave policy and finding furniture for the elementary school. Related: In Mississippi schools, access to technology lacking, uneven. A sign made out of butcher paper was left in his yard.

Junior High

Junior High Civics K-12 Economics

Jigsaw Strategy

Studies Weekly

FEBRUARY 28, 2024

Jigsaw Strategy Oct. February 26, 2024 Lesson 5: Who Can Run For Office February 26, 2024 Lesson 6: How Do We Choose Leaders?

K-12

K-12 Lesson Plan Geography Civics

Studies Weekly Spotlight: Texas Teacher Shares Passion for Nonfiction

Studies Weekly

FEBRUARY 29, 2024

Bradshaw wishes more teachers would teach civics and history through Studies Weekly. Each child gets his or her own newspaper, which they love, and then I simply guide and facilitate the week’s topic using the Studies Weekly online component,” she said. Many key topics are overlooked or taught at a lower level, and I do not know why.

Social Studies

Social Studies K-12 Civics Lesson Plan

Getting a GED while still enrolled in high school

The Hechinger Report

MARCH 5, 2018

Last fall, YEP staff set up shop to provide HiSET-prep for at-risk New Orleans high-school students — before they became dropouts — within its Central City campus, housed within a grand historic bank-building that seems appropriately academic in appearance. Related: A little girl’s school helps her deal with trauma at home.

High School

High School K-12 Tutoring Elementary School

Are Educators a Natural Fit for Public Office? These Candidates Think So

ED Surge

AUGUST 27, 2024

Jahana Hayes of Connecticut, a former high school history and government teacher. The step from public teacher to public office holder is, for many, intuitive, says Kelly Siegel-Stechler, a senior researcher at Tufts University’s Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement.

Education

Education Civics Government Political Science

Making positive educational moves during the pandemic

The Hechinger Report

OCTOBER 14, 2020

So Joffe created eLearn.fyi , a database of more than 300 online learning tools, including a civics curriculum founded by former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and engineering lessons on how to build a robotic arm. She’s also found it harder to engage with some of her elementary school students.

Education

Education Civics Civic Engagement Psychology

Florida Rejects 35% of Social Studies Texts as Too Leftist

Diane Ravitch

MAY 9, 2023

The textbooks are for elementary and middle school social studies classes as well as civics, economics, U.S. Griffin highlighted a passage from a middle school textbook that described a socialist economy as one that “keeps things nice and even and without unnecessary waste.” history and world history courses.

Social Studies

Social Studies Social Justice K-12 Civics

Last week was tough, teachers say. But it wasn’t the first difficult ‘day after’ they’ve faced

The Hechinger Report

JANUARY 15, 2021

Marie Hydukovich was teaching middle school when she heard that 20 children had been murdered at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. She is currently a library media specialist at South Saint Paul Public Schools, in Minnesota. Credit: Marie Hydukovich.

Charter School

Charter School Civics Middle School Civic Engagement

Not all towns are created equal, digitally

The Hechinger Report

JANUARY 21, 2017

And their cash-strapped school district has struggled to provide them with even the most basic digital tools. School leaders have solicited donations from local manufacturing plants, energy firms, even the federal government. million into schoolwide technology upgrades. The measure failed. “I’m But computers are expensive.

K-12

K-12 High School Library Elementary School

Carol Kocivar: It’s Time to Talk to Your Child About Threats to Democracy

Diane Ravitch

MARCH 24, 2025

Kids are taught about the Constitution in school In elementary school, students should already have some basic knowledge about how our government is supposed to work. Thats why we created The Kids Guide to President Trump, and right now were giving it away for FREE!

Elementary School

Elementary School Social Science History Public School

STUDENT VOICE: Let’s stop the apathy in Kentucky and beyond

The Hechinger Report

JUNE 20, 2017

Related: LISTEN: In this Kentucky town, refugees can choose a separate high school. The answer starts in the classroom, where civics education often fails to inspire and engage students. Far too many schools preach, rather than practice, democratic ideals. We need to learn civics from the ground up.

Civics

Civics Civic Engagement K-12 Government

Without local school boards, parents in poor communities lose their vote

The Hechinger Report

AUGUST 22, 2016

million people live in places where state officials took over entire districts or individual schools in the past six years, according to News21 data collected from state government agencies. The only solution to save the Highland Park School District was to take control of the system entirely, state officials concluded.

Charter School

Charter School Public School Government High School

The (mostly) Republican Idaho moms fighting to reclaim their school district from hard-right conservatives

The Hechinger Report

DECEMBER 10, 2023

Sitting beside her, Candy Turner , a retired elementary school teacher who had brought Ziploc bags of pear slices and dried cranberries for the hours ahead, agreed. “I After Election Day, headlines in key locales all around the country spoke of moms fighting extremists in local school board races and winning.

Elementary School

Elementary School Junior High High School Public School

Detroit schools are effectively barred from raising funds to repair their buildings. Federal money is the city’s only hope

The Hechinger Report

SEPTEMBER 30, 2021

DETROIT — Taking a trip down memory lane from the sidewalk in front of Western International High School, former civics teacher Keith Johnson shared the school’s ghost story, a tall tale about a child who died in a 1935 fire there. For now, children walk elementary school floors buckled so badly they appear to have waves.

High School

High School Public School Government Elementary School

Where Americans Are — and Aren’t — Politically Divided on Education

ED Surge

APRIL 26, 2024

One hope is that rather than balkanizing into red state and blue state education policy agendas , that we can have sensible, civic-minded reforms that large majorities of people can support.” adults, with about half of those coming from people who said there was at least one school-age child in their home.

Education

Education Controversial Topics Civics Elementary School

Marjory Stoneman students give legislators a civics lesson

The Hechinger Report

FEBRUARY 20, 2018

For instance, a year ago, President Donald Trump rescinded an Obama-era regulation crafted in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that required the Social Security Administration to report beneficiaries with severe mental disabilities to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System.

Civics

Civics Elementary School High School History

Switching sides in the teacher wars

The Hechinger Report

FEBRUARY 3, 2019

Related: LA’s school counselors strike back. Tulsa Public Schools Superintendent Deborah Gist visits a first-grade class at Penn Elementary School. In some ways, the Obama-era school reform skirmishes were a problem of luxury. Four union members running for state government won their primaries last year.

Charter School

Charter School Junior High Political Science Elementary School

Schoolchildren “have a lot of questions and a lot of fear” in aftermath of Trump victory

The Hechinger Report

NOVEMBER 9, 2016

Sarah Swanson-Hysell, a teacher at Lighthouse Community Charter School in California’s Oakland Unified School District, sympathizes with students like Benjamin. government and making clear that President Barack Obama will remain in his position until January. “I I think it must be so terrifying to be a kid.

Charter School

Charter School Middle School Government Civics

College student voting is way up

The Hechinger Report

SEPTEMBER 30, 2024

But rates of voting by young people have quietly been rising to unprecedented levels, despite their lifetimes of watching government gridlock and attempts in some states to make it harder for them to vote. Tisch College of Civic Life. “It Census Bureau. It goes back to them engaging each other and saying, ‘This isn’t a perfect system.

Political Science

Political Science Civics Government Social Justice

Social Studies Network

OPINION: During civic learning week, let’s push for national progress toward a more perfect union

OPINION: How can teachers help students grapple with the chaos surrounding us?

Trending Sources

His Teachers Showed Him Why History Matters. Now He Wants to Pay That Forward.

A study finds promise in project-based learning for young low-income children

OPINION: Can this 12-step program from Finland aid U.S. education?

What I Learned From My Students Who Became Teachers

How to improve schooling during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to students

TEACHER VOICE: What was troubling enough as 20th century history is happening in the present time

How one Mississippi district made integration work

Jigsaw Strategy

Studies Weekly Spotlight: Texas Teacher Shares Passion for Nonfiction

Getting a GED while still enrolled in high school

Are Educators a Natural Fit for Public Office? These Candidates Think So

Making positive educational moves during the pandemic

Florida Rejects 35% of Social Studies Texts as Too Leftist

Last week was tough, teachers say. But it wasn’t the first difficult ‘day after’ they’ve faced

Not all towns are created equal, digitally

Carol Kocivar: It’s Time to Talk to Your Child About Threats to Democracy

STUDENT VOICE: Let’s stop the apathy in Kentucky and beyond

Without local school boards, parents in poor communities lose their vote

The (mostly) Republican Idaho moms fighting to reclaim their school district from hard-right conservatives

Detroit schools are effectively barred from raising funds to repair their buildings. Federal money is the city’s only hope

Where Americans Are — and Aren’t — Politically Divided on Education

Marjory Stoneman students give legislators a civics lesson

Switching sides in the teacher wars

Schoolchildren “have a lot of questions and a lot of fear” in aftermath of Trump victory

College student voting is way up

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