What does a civics education entail?

I co-authored a 2021 report offering a national-consensus answer to this important question for K-12 schooling, Educating for American Democracy: Excellence in History and Civics for All Learners (EAD). We argued that both civic knowledge and civic virtues are necessary to prepare for committed and effective civic participation by citizens and aspiring citizens of our constitutional democracy.

This must be a high priority for schools, thus state and local educational agency authorities, with appropriate support from the federal government. This model of civics as a renewed priority also requires a recommitment by higher education to preparing teachers with serious civic and history education, so that school communities, and our state and local civic cultures, understand how crucial citizenship education is for sustaining our democratic republic.

American civic culture is in poor health, including regularly violent language and acts of political violence. Americans under 30 have low regard for being a self-governing citizen, for American institutions and principles, for America. Further, for the few voices who care about civics, it has long been a politically contentious arena, effectively reinforcing the shift in schools to prioritize math, reading and science. America must turn this around — schools, along with educational and civic leaders must step up — and we strove for a national-consensus approach in the EAD report so that we could provide constructive support. I recently joined two co-authors on an update about the EAD approach and its implementation bit.ly/4b1fAoD for the National Association of State Boards of Education.

What should every graduating senior understand about the Constitution and the rule of law, regardless of political viewpoint?

A focus on the Constitution and rule of law holds the central place among the featured themes in the EAD report. We must understand the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, as amended, as American common ground. Under our constitutional principle of federalism, this extends to the constitutions or charters of states and other governing communities where we also exercise self-government. One dimension of our intertwined crisis of civic ignorance and civic disintegration is our polarization — the declining sense of any common ground. We’ve forgotten that the 1787 Constitution was proposed precisely to address the reality, as our framers saw it, that free people always disagree about nearly everything. A shared commitment to a constitution as rules of the game improves our self-governing by channeling our disagreement through complex institutional forms and shared norms, promoting better disagreement. The EAD report aims to address this dilemma — how to re-engage with civics, including knowledge and appreciation of our constitutional order — by featuring a civic virtue we recommend, a “reflective patriotism.”

The great French observer of America, Alexis de Tocqueville, coined this phrase to capture our love of country that also included argument and rational assessments of what the United States means, or should mean. My forthcoming book “Teaching America: Reflective Patriotism in Schools, College, and Culture” proposes the need to restore an argumentative gratitude for America to motivate a renewal of civics and the hard work it entails. This includes understanding the deep, fascinating, but very practical principles of separation of powers, federalism and shared norms animating our constitutional order.

Where does the line lie between teaching about contested ideas in U.S. history and being perceived as promoting a political viewpoint?

This is a main issue we addressed in the EAD report. We outlined seven content themes for civic knowledge; then three civic virtues: civil disagreement, civic friendship and reflective patriotism. Then to fully capture the complexity of the U.S. and the civics we need, we wove through the themes a set of five design challenges to capture the appropriate, enduring tensions. One of these design challenges is to balance civic honesty and reflective patriotism. America isn’t perfect and we disagree about how it should better live up to its founding principles of political liberty and equality for all. An excellent civic education thus entails engagement with contested ideas, including criticisms of America by Americans. EAD frames this as a feature, not a bug, of the U.S. and our civics, providing the curriculum and teacher are encompassing a range of views about a range of important issues, all framed by civic knowledge and civic virtues.

In “Teaching America,” I emphasize civic exemplars of reflective patriotism — great leaders who believed in our founding principles and argued we must reform our laws to fully heed them. Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln capture this about slavery; Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony about equality for women; Martin Luther King, Jr. about civil rights for all.

From a legal perspective, what are the most common misunderstandings about what public schools can and cannot teach regarding race, religion, protest movements and patriotism?

A bedrock principle for this topic is federalism, especially that states hold a plenary “police power” under their constitutions. This “police” authority shares a linguistic root with “politeness” — that is, a concern for civilized order. The traditional American phrasing is that the police power covers health, safety, welfare, morals and education.

As with any political power, we constantly argue whether it is being exercised well or badly, prudently or counter-productively. Race, religion, protests and patriotism aren’t the only controversial issues state authorities have addressed in recent years regarding public school curricula. A challenge for state authorities is to recover a healthy civic and constitutional order through providing civic education that is true to America’s culture of constructive civil disagreement and reflective patriotism. This means curricula and standards that appropriately frame the teaching of contested ideas, in grade-appropriate ways. Censoring particular ideas or topics is likely to blowback on teachers, students, schools, and our local and national civic communities by undermining the positive energy for serious civics, further marginalizing this crucial subject.

In 2026, what is the core civic purpose of teaching the nation’s founding and how do schools balance those goals?

In the spirit of EAD and “Teaching America,” all of these purposes are crucial — but some are more so. As we begin the U.S.’s 250th anniversary commemorations, we should recall that leading founders — from Ben Franklin and Benjamin Rush to Thomas Jefferson and George Washington — emphasized the necessity of civic education, and that this legacy inspired Horace Mann and the common schools movement of the 19th century. Civics is a main founding purpose for public schools. As noted, schools should emphasize our shared identity as a constitutional people: Americans self-govern on the common ground of shared rules and principles. Civic participation comes next, as framed by civic knowledge and civic virtues, thus preparing for constructive engagement and civic service in our constitutional order. Critical thinking is implicit in this complex, balanced approach.

If we learn to undertake civil disagreement and civic friendship as Americans and constructively governing amid our disagreements, we will have learned to critically assess our own civic views while hearing out those of fellow citizens. This effort to renew a serious, balanced civic education now should utilize the 250th anniversary to highlight that the nation’s civic founding took place across two decades. Given our civics ignorance and civic crisis, we need to commemorate the entire founding, from declaring independence in 1776 to ratifying the Bill of Rights in 1791. That scale of commemorations shows teachers, school leaders, community leaders and students that the American journey of the founding — from 1776 to completing our constitutional structure in 1791 — is one of argument, achievement, reform and continued debate.

How can educators teach civic ideals like liberty and equality while also helping students grapple with the founding-era context on and limits for those ideals?

The reflective patriotism Tocqueville praises about the Americans, featured in the EAD civics model, includes a commitment to America as e pluribus unum (out of many, one). The national motto of unity from pluralism initially addressed federalism, forging a republic of state republics. Across our centuries of diverse immigration, we have added the task of making one people out of the many backgrounds, civilizations and views we comprise as “We the People.” One challenge today is that some voices in civic education debates emphasize predominantly the unum (one) under a dominant creed and historical narrative. Others emphasize the pluribus (many), particularly historically marginalized groups and identities.

A serious K-12 American civic education must emphasize both while keeping a dynamic balance. We must know and appreciate our common ground and shared history to include our legacy of excluding from full citizenship slaves, women, racial and ethnic minorities, and religious minorities. Yet great civic exemplars teach a lesson of civic hope, addressing these exclusions as un-American. Martin Luther King, Jr., the last of these great leaders, stood in 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall to argue that achieving the American dream means we all must stand in Lincoln’s symbolic shadow.

What does healthy civic disagreement look like in a classroom?

The EAD model offers guidelines to approach this important aim of American civics from the earliest elementary grades. Differing emphases and approaches are appropriate by grade band. For grades 6-8 and 9-12, where disagreement and discussion is most appropriate for civic learning, the full set of civic virtues needs to be taught and practiced. We should emphasize that civil disagreement across divergent views produced the Declaration, the Constitution and its ratification, the Bill of Rights, and every subsequent milestone of American civic and political life for a quarter millennium; and the greatest failing in this area yielded a Civil War that nearly terminated the American experiment in self-government.

Civic friendship across divergent principles and backgrounds, given a shared commitment to the American common ground of constitutional principles and norms, buttresses and celebrates the hard work of civil disagreement. Primary sources should lay the foundation for understanding why constructive listening and response, as well as reasonable, articulate statements of one’s own views or questions, are essential capacities in our complex constitutional order. Opportunities to practice civil disagreement in small groups, modeled on debates in 1776 and 1787 in Philadelphia, might be offered. Contemporary controversies might be approached once these civic virtues and capacities are familiar. The EAD implementation effort is developing curricula and assessing pilots across several states that emphasize articulating as well as listening to civic arguments, then evaluating diverse views and re-evaluating one’s own.

You’ve recently become director of the Center for American Civics that aims to support and strengthen “K-12 students’ knowledge of American civics and civil discourse skills.” How is the center working to implement those goals?

As founding director of a school of civic thought and leadership at Arizona State University, I established the Center for American Civics as a collaboration between experienced school teachers and professors with expertise in civic ideas and history. Other institutes employed this model, including the Center for Civic Education and Bill of Rights Institute. We built an online Civic Literary Curriculum with 563 lessons spanning kindergarten through adult learners. For America’s 250th, we began on July 4, 2025, a 250-episode podcast series, Civics in a Year, which culminates on July 4, 2026. We are interviewing a range of experts on crucial civic moments, ideas and leaders; it has generated over 13,000 downloads in its early months, reaching listeners in every state. The center also produced the first Arizona pocket constitution, to complement our department’s unique U.S. pocket constitution — which adds to the Declaration and Constitution, with all amendments, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and King’s “I Have a Dream,” speech, making a handy packet of American reflective patriotism and civil disagreement. Our in-person professional development workshops for teachers reach hundreds of educators each year, across the state and this year into Colorado and Nevada. For high school students, we offer a one-week Civic Leadership Institute in the summer focused on the American founding and its legacy, introducing civic knowledge and practice of civic virtues, including civil disagreement in either a moot court or a cabinet debate exercise

If you could improve one thing about how civic education is taught marking the 250th anniversary of the founding of the U.S. in California’s TK–12 schools today, what would it be and why?

The EAD report and “Teaching America” urge American leaders and communities to elevate the priority for civics given our poor state of civic literacy and civic commitment, and our disintegrating civic culture. School leaders, and civic and political leaders, should commit to revitalized civic education across the next 15 years, to 2041, echoing the time it took from the founding to the Bill of Rights, as a school-wide, district-wide and community priority, partnering with state, local government and civil society institutions. This effort would help restore broader confidence in public schools if civics is approached in the complex, balanced way recommended here.

A serious civic education also provides students the “durable skills” necessary for successful careers of all kinds, from higher education to vocational training to immediate employment. A renewed priority for civics yields healthier school cultures by emphasizing that all students, faculty and staff are citizens or aspiring citizens of the American experiment in self-government; we’re all in it together, and the liberties and security we enjoy, while not perfect, are the envy of billions across our planet.
Yet today the perpetuation of our forms of self-government is at stake, given our angry polarization and new technologies, but also the flagging civic commitment of so many Americans. It is in the enlightened self-interest of schools and school leaders to reprioritize civic education, to restore the civic mission of public schooling and to renew broader confidence in schools and improve school communities.

Responses have been edited for length.