For decades, educators and activists have been working to improve the educational system in the United States. The federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation was enacted in 2001 in response to disparities in student achievement. Going back to the old school approach, the focus was on reading, writing, mathematics, and science, and NCLB directed states to design a system in which their students show improvements in these four subjects. Federal funds were tied to proof of annual progress to ensure that objectives were being met.

There is a glaring gap in this approach. By default, in emphasizing these subjects, civics, social studies, humanities, and history have been de-emphasized. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the Nation’s Report Card, tests students in the 4th, 8th, and 12th grades in civics. The 2006 results indicate that since 1998, only at the 4th grade have improvements been made, and predominantly from lower-performing students. Results from the 8th and 12th grades remain unchanged. Recently, there has been talk that, due to budget restrictions, NAEP will be eliminating some areas of testing. In particular, 4th graders may no longer be tested in U.S. history and civics in 2010. If the Nation’s Report Card is eliminating the U.S. history and civics assessments in the 4th grade, the message is that they are not priorities.

Comprehensive education and learning simply cannot ignore civics and history. Civic education and history must hold an equal place in our educational system. At the recent annual conference of the National Council for the Social Studies, the ABA Division for Public Education sponsored an address by retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. More than 1,500 social studies educators from throughout the country attended the program.  Justice O’Connor spoke eloquently about the importance of civic education[1]:, “Our children, our grandchildren…are going to grow up as guardians of democracy and the rule of law…It is the citizens of our nation who have to preserve our system of government and we can’t forget it. And the better educated out citizens are, the better equipped they will be to do it. Part of it is also understanding the history of our country and how it formed and why, and the system the Framers tried to construct. We have some work to do today to get students educated.”

Justice O’Connor continued, “We must get across to our students that they do matter in our system of government, and they are critical to the success of each of the three branches of government, and so they need to learn what they are, and that they matter.” She explained, “For most Americans, participation in a social studies class or a civics class is about the only formal opportunity the person may have to think from the perspective of a legislator, an executive, or a judge, or even of the Framers of the Constitution who envisioned our three branches of government and how they would share power and fit together. And it’s in the classroom, that’s the first place that students get a sense of themselves as citizens.”  

Such is the importance of civic education and history. To solely identify math, science, reading, and writing as measures of educational achievement and progress is a fragmented way of viewing learning. Without history and civic education, students are receiving an incomplete education. History and civic education is more than memorizing significant events and key figures. History is about understanding the context of these events and figures, its ramifications on future outcomes, and its influences on culture and identity. Furthermore, studying history and civic education teaches the skills to critically examine, reflect, analyze, and contextualize one’s place in history, not only from yesterday, but from today and even tomorrow.

And while testing is far from the sole indicator of student achievement, in not including civics and American history in the early years of NAEP’s testing cycle and in excluding civics, history, social studies, and government in the core subjects to be measured for NCLB, it is sending a message that civics and history are unimportant components of a child’s education. Rather, without civics and history, a child’s education is incomplete. Civics and history must be included as important measures of a student’s academic performance.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The views expressed in the above have not been approved by ABA’s policy-making House of Delegates or Board of Governors, and, accordingly, should not be construed as representing the policy of the American Bar Association.