Civic Education News Roundup: Introducing Democracy 201!

Big news for our civic education nerds: we’re launching a new section of The Renovator just for you!

We launched this roundup because there are so many educators supporting civic learning around the country – for all ages, in all kinds of institutions and settings – who may not know how many allies and partners they actually have. Our field, or perhaps our movement, is growing by leaps and bounds thanks to the efforts of these educators. The more we connect with each other, support each other, and learn from each other, the stronger this civic renewal will be.

We want to share more stories and essays about how to do civic learning well, and for that reason, we’re launching Democracy 201, a new feed for paid subscribers within The Renovator. We’ll keep doing our biweekly civic education news roundups and sharing them with the full Renovator audience, but if you also subscribe to Democracy 201, you’ll get more specialized writing about education.

So go into your settings on Substack and subscribe to The Renovator’s Democracy 201 feed if you’re interested! Just toggle on the emails you want to receive, and toggle off any that you don’t.

You will notice that we’re paywalling Democracy 201 articles. Since Democracy 201 will be (we hope) a service to professional educators, we hope you’ll support our work and our mission by paying for a subscription. Think about it this way: it’s cheaper than going to see a conference presentation! And your paid membership also gets you access to The Renovator’s live Assembly meetings and other perks.

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The American Enterprise Institute held their fifth annual Future of the American University conference: A New Academic-Social Contract? In the video recording, you can check out Danielle Allen and her fellow panelists’ answers to the question: “How can the academic social contract actually be rewritten?”

Check out the Youtube playlist of recordings from the Jack Miller Center’s National Summit on Civic Education!

Elizabeth Evans is wrapping up her “Civics in a Year” podcast for Arizona State University’s School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership (SCETL), to coincide with the 250th — it’s an incredible resource as well as a fun listen! I am not at all objective on the subject, as the episodes I recorded with Liz about Athens, Rome, and the birth of the USA are coming out in a couple of weeks…

Civic learning in the spotlight:

• U.S. Department of Education and U.S. Department of Labor Announce Additional Grant Competition Under Elementary and Secondary Education Partnership to Promote Civics with a focus on patriotic education. “In light of America’s upcoming semi-quincentennial, these grants—open to applications from colleges, nonprofits and for-profits—are a timely return to teaching first principles and cultivating the Common Good,” said Assistant Secretary of Labor, Employment and Training, Dr. Henry Mack.

• With Smithsonian under scrutiny, its leader curates a complex history show, by Jonathan Edwards for the Washington Post:

“American Aspirations,” an exhibition opening Tuesday in the newly reopened Smithsonian headquarters, will also acknowledge the darker corners of the country’s history, recognizing that it’s still striving to live up to the ideals on which it was founded 250 years ago.

The exhibit, co-curated by the head of the Smithsonian, Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III, gathers more than 30 objects from across the Smithsonian’s sprawling collections to trace how successive generations of Americans have reached — and fallen short of — the ideals first set down in the Declaration of Independence.

• Civics could bridge divides. Teachers fear crossing the line. Policymakers see the country’s 250th anniversary as a chance to bolster civics education. Educators say they’re facing challenges teaching the subject. By Karissa Waddick for USA Today.

• More Perfect has announced a partnership with the Karsh Institute of Democracy to bolster local journalism and expand civic education nationwide.

The importance of learning civic skills and dispositions:

• The Democratic Tradition We’ve Forgotten, By Trygve Throntveit for Time: civic collaboration.

• Educating as if Democracy Depends on It: Preparing young people to participate and govern means moving beyond entrusting civic learning to a single course in high school or an elective on campus and correcting “education away from democracy.” By Catherine E. Lhamon, former Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the US Department of Education, for Stanford Social Innovation Review.

• Schools as Shared Civic Infrastructure: How can we teach students to embrace their civic identity as members of their communities and support them in leading our nation’s democratic renaissance? By Elizabeth Clay Roy for the Stanford Social Innovation Review.

• We Study in Shelters and Still Look at the Stars: A student from Bucha, Ukraine, on resilience, responsibility, and why hardship is this generation’s superpower. From The Aspen Institute’s The GroupChat.

• Memorial Day, Civic Life, and the Lessons We Pass to Our Children by Julie Silverbook.

• Becoming good citizens requires practice – and we all need to do our reps, by Anne Wicks, George W. Bush Institute — reflections on a panel at Wesleyan University’s Democracy 250 celebrations with Melody Barnes, Jonathan Becker, and Katie Montgomery.

• ‘Civics-in-a-Box’ Project from the Center on Representative Government, based at Indiana University in Bloomington, Wins Leonore Annenberg Institute for Civics Award: They will create high-quality, accessible civic education materials that youth group leaders in a variety of community-based settings can use to help students build the skills necessary for effective civic participation in their communities.

Civil dialogue:

• Teaching Civil Discourse: How one college’s initiative is influencing campuses nationwide, By Graham Vyse for the Chronicle of Higher Education on Davidson’s Deliberative Citizenship Initiative (DCI).

• How can colleges teach students to have challenging conversations? As some institutions try to clamp down on classroom discussion, others are providing students with skills to discuss difficult subjects with their classmates. By Danielle McLean for Higher Ed Dive, with a spotlight on Marquette University.

• How Universities Can Counter the Perils of Tribalism and Encourage Civil Disagreement, by Marcos Emilio Pérez for the Scholars Strategy Network.

Learning from history:

• Teaching American History through Film by Dr. Bryan Paul for The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA).

• Constitutional Voices: Phillis Wheatley, by Trey Sullivan for the National Constitution Center.

• The Declaration of Independence’s Influence Around the World, By David Armitage for the National Constitution Center.

• The new faces of Alabama’s voting rights fight, and what they’re learning from their predecessors, by Jonece Starr Dunigan for AL.com.

• Heather Cox Richardson and 250 to 250 are producing daily videos by famous Americans about the history that inspires them, in honor of the semiquincentennial.

• America at 250: History, Innovation, and the Next Chapter from the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress on June 18 in DC will feature conversations on “Building a Resilient Democracy” (former NH governor Chris Sununu will be on the panel) and “History, Memory and the American Story” (with author John Farrell and Washington Post contributor Michelle Jaconi).

• Were the Constitution’s Authors a Little Too Optimistic?: The nation’s founding document has a blind spot. Trump is making it visible. By Adam Liptak for the New York Times.

Celebrating civic learning from the past year:

• Minnesota Teacher Megan Thompson Wins $10,000 Civic Star Challenge Gold Prize from iCivics and the Bill of Rights Institute

During a period of profound civil unrest in Minneapolis, she helped her students make sense of their constitutional rights to privacy and peaceful protest, and helped them navigate real-world issues by connecting to America’s founding principles. “To support students professionally without inserting myself politically, I offered primary sources and the content to encourage natural connections,” Thompson wrote. Thompson is a James Madison Fellow, a Sphere 100 Fellow, and a member of the National Constitution Center’s Teacher Advisory Board.

• A ‘Civic Star’ educator brightens up his classroom by creating community by Caroline Parker for EdNC, featuring Charles Oliver, a teacher at Roanoke Valley Early College partnering with iCivics.

• What communities in Poland, Brazil, and India Taught Us About Strengthening Civic Culture: Reflections from our year of Global Learning, from Citizen University.

• The Jack Miller Center announces Teaching America250 Awards recipients.

• UW La Crosse Students honor Samuel Scinta as Higher Education Advocate of the Year for his work on community engagement and fostering civil dialogue through the ‘Rebuilding American Civics’ program

• Five UVA Grads Put Lessons in Democracy to Work: After investing hundreds of hours interning with the Karsh Institute, these new UVA graduates are applying what they’ve learned to a wide range of professional and civic pursuits.

• Olin College of Engineering Students Learn to Take Action in New “Local Democracy” Course with Erhardt Graeff.

• Students tackle community issues through civics in Arizona, from the Peoria Times.

• Teaching students to ‘use their voice and actually make a change’: coverage of Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Civics Project Showcases, by Jill Kaufman for NHPR.

• Clinton School of Public Service at the University of Arkansas student Lauren Sermersheim Serves as Youth250 National Gen Z Advisor for America’s 250th Anniversary.

Civic education in the states:

• Shifts in NAEP and Growth of Civic Seals Are Transformative Opportunities, by Louise Dubé, Emma Humphries, and Shawn Healy of iCivics

• Alaska Legislature approves civics education requirement for all Alaska high schoolers, by Corinne Smith for the Alaska Beacon.

• ‘Founding Voices’ initiative to bring immersive civics education ahead of America’s 250th anniversary: Florida State University’s Institute for Governance and Civics is launching a $1.7 million program to bring live historical interpreters to middle and high schools statewide.

• Refresher Course: Why are civics teachers having a tough time? For Civics 101 by New Hampshire Public Radio, By Michelle Liu, Julia Barnett, and Nick Capodice.

• The University of New Hampshire’s Carsey School of Public Policy is supporting student fellows in “New Hampshire Listens,” supporting civic engagement and responsive government to address low levels of civic knowledge reflected in the 2024 New Hampshire Civic Health Report.

• Michigan students learn about American Government at Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum Civics Camp.

• Trump administration and Philly clash in court over President’s House slavery exhibit as 250th nears: The hearing before the federal appeals court marked the latest step in the legal saga that’s transpired following attempts sanitize history at President George Washington’s Philadelphia home. By Fallon Roth and Abraham Gutman for the Philadelphia Inquirer - also reported by Carmen Russell-Sluchansky for WHYY here.

Civic learning resources

• CERL and the Center for Civic Education Present We the People: National Symposium on Civic Education Research Proceedings and video recordings from a March event at Georgetown University, including a simulated Congressional hearing, research and best practices on civic learning for learners with disabilities and English learners, family engagement, and more.

• Project Look Sharp has a media literacy content hub for The American Revolution at 250, as well as many resources related to Juneteenth.

• How Teaching History Can Help Our Terrible Reading Scores: The narrative appeal of the past has common cause with building literacy, an interview with Rick Hess of EducationNext and Matthew Levey from the Knowledge Matters Campaign

New publications:

• Exploring Equitable Community–Campus Relationships, Edited by Karla Bird, Suchitra V. Gururaj, Sara B. Moore, Andrea Robles, and Cindy Vincent Claar for Campus Compact and AAC&U from Routledge - with an online book series scheduled over the summer

• From CIRCLE: Stronger Civic Access, Support, and Culture Address Engagement Gaps by Rurality and Education: The key assets of our CIRCLE Growing Voters framework are associated with higher self-reported voter turnout and civic action among underserved groups. By Ruby Belle Booth, Seona Maskara, Yanlin Ren.

• A trio of articles featuring new research findings from CIRCLE about the youth vote in 2026:

  • Youth Are Likely to Vote in 2026—But Want to See Big Changes in Democracy

  • 49 Million Young People Will Be Eligible to Vote in the 2026 Midterms

  • Where Young Voters Can Decide Elections in 2026: CIRCLE’s Youth Electoral Significance Index provides data-based rankings of the U.S. Senate and Governor elections where the youth can swing a race.

• America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows the Nation’s Anniversaries By Eddie S. Glaude Jr. from Penguin Random House.

• Radical Duke: How One Aristocrat-and the American Revolution-Transformed Britain By Danielle Allen from Norton.

Upcoming Events:

1. Crash Course on Facilitating Disagreement from AORTA, Wednesday, June 10, 7 PM - 9 PM EDT

2. K–12 Civic Education on the Eve of America’s 250th Anniversary with Robert Pondiscio for the American Enterprise Institute, Thursday, June 11, 4:00 PM to 5:15 PM ET

3. “What’s Next, America?” is a nationwide initiative of the National Issues Forums Institute designed to help communities come together locally to talk, decide, and act on the issues that matter most to them as the country approaches its 250th anniversary. “What’s Next, America?” asks participants in a community to work through three sets of deliberative discussion questions centering on the overarching questions: where are we now; where do we want to go; and how will we get there. Next Info Session Friday June 12th, 4-4:45pm Eastern.

4. Reimagining the Declaration of Independence for the UVA Lifetime Learning’s Summer Jefferson Symposium, June 17, 3-4:15PM EDT with John Ragosta and Christa Dierksheide

5. An Essential Partners Dialogue Experience: America @ 250, a three-hour facilitated Reflective Structured Dialogue, June 16, 3:00 PM ET

6. Fostering Civic Action in Youth | Cultivating Learning: Celebrating America at 250 from Smithsonian Education, June 17, 45 PM EDT

7. Live from Carpenter’s Hall: The Founding of Pennsylvania and the Legacy of the Pa. Constitution, a WHYY public radio broadcast with guests Professor Christopher Pearl, author of Conceived in Crisis: The Revolutionary Creation of an American State, and Ben Geffen, senior attorney at the Public Interest Law Center, Thursday, June 18, 12:00PM - 1:00PM

8. Democracy and the Economy: Rethinking Civic Participation from the National Civic League, June 18th at 1pm ET (12 pm CT, 11am MT, 10am PT)

9. Young Invincibles is seeking proposals by June 19 for their national summit in Arlington this September. The summit will bring together young adults, policy leaders, advocates, and community partners looking to advance economic opportunity for the next generation, and proposals must feature a young adult perspective (ages 18-34). One pillar of YI’s work is higher education and academic freedom.

10. Joint National Youth Leadership Council (NYLC) National Service-Learning Conference and Points of Light Social Impact Conference, June 22-25, 2026 Washington, D.C.

11. Civil War Round Table: Lincoln & the American Revolution - Founding Forward talk with Dr. Allen Guelzo, Professor of Humanities at the Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education at the University of Florida, June 24, 6:00 PM

12. Designing and Conducting Community-Based Research, from the International Association for Service-Learning and Community Engagement (IARSLCE), June 25 at 10am Eastern

13. Our Declaration: “We the People” and the Declaration of Independence, a course for educators from the Civic Learning Institute taught by Danielle Allen, beginning July 8.

14. Teaching Difficult Issues in K-12 Schools-Summer Virtual Workshop Series from Penn State’s Hammel Family Human Rights Initiative, begins July 8.

15. Teaching250: Civics Renewal for America’s 250th and Beyond - from The Center for Civic Education In Partnership with the National Constitution Center, July 9, 7:00-8:30 pm EST.

16. Institute on Experiential Learning and Engaged Dialogue | AAC&U, July 14 – 17, 2026: a four-day, online, team-based institute for colleges and universities committed to strengthening applied learning, dialogue across difference, and civic preparation. Teams leave the institute with a focused action plan to advance this work across the curriculum, cocurriculum, and the institutional structures that support student success and belonging.

17. Smithsonian National Education Summit—Together We Thrive: Towards a More Perfect Union July 14–16, 2026, in person and online.