The idea sounds good, and even some Republicans support it. They even sponsored a bill in Congress to promote it. 

What is Action Civics?

Action civics is not necessarily a curriculum but more a style of learning. 

Everyone kind of agrees that young people, even college educated people, are poorly educated in civics (civics being the study of how our government works). To solve that problem, action civics proposes to learn by doing – instructors lead students to get involved in politics, to take a stand on something and promote it. 

The website iCivics offers free action civics curriculum. It’s leader, Louise Dube, also leads the CivXNow Coalition. Stanley Kurtz often writes in opposition Beware: New Civics Mandates Will Be Woke, $30 Million for Student Protests and Reply to Louise Dube of iCivics.

We think it is a bad idea for several reasons:

· Teachers are overwhelmingly liberal so their influence will be used to engage students in political activism for mostly liberal causes

· Middle and High School students are not mature enough and do not have the necessary background in actual civics – why America is a Republic, what is a balance of power, how are laws made, what are the founding principles of American Democracy – or in American history – to make well-informed choices. 

· Schools are supposed to be politically neutral – neither Republican nor Democrat. This could threaten that neutrality.

· Public funding of schools must not be channeled into either right-wing or left-wing causes! Schools must be forced to get out of political advocacy.

Kurtz concludes

“Unfortunately, widespread adoption of Action Civics will definitively politicize an already politically tainted K-12 educational system, irrevocably cementing the partisan Left’s hold upon our culture. Action civics amounts to school-sponsored indoctrination and political action in support of progressive policy positions.”

It would be a much better approach, one that would result in the development of mature and well-informed citizens, to teach real American Civics – and we applaud those schools still doing this – and real American History (see History – The 1619 Project).