Executive Director's Report: Civic engagement is key mission of public schools

Members of Congress, eager to get their sound bites on Fox News, CNN, and other media, say vitriolic things about the other side’s point of view. The Sunday talk shows mostly originate from Washington, because there are lots of hotheads here whose opinions will rankle and inflame. It’s a testy town.

The fact is these adults are not good role models for our children -- but neither are any adults who yell at one another at home, or cheat the system, or badmouth others in front of children.

At times I do despair when I see such behavior, because kids see everything. And everything they see too often gets internalized and adopted.

That’s why schools need to take on the role of teaching positive values. Focusing on character, articulating the values that bind us as a nation and as human beings, and looking at the civic mission of our schools are not new endeavors. They’re as old as the earliest beginnings of public schools.

But these topics can get lost in the forces driving public schools today, such as accountability, test scores, No Child Left Behind, failing schools, equity funding lawsuits, and the battles over creationism vs. science.

Leaders in public education have a real responsibility to help school staffs, superintendents, principals, teachers, and our communities rise above these forces and lift the conversation to a higher level, where they can see the forest from the trees.

Over the past two decades, NSBA has been involved in joint projects with many organizations to articulate the civic mission of schools, foster character education, and provide healthy community and school conversations around some of the most difficult issues facing us as a nation.

These organizations and many others provide tools, guides, and wonderful resource materials that can help you lead the conversations in your school communities to not only bring us closer together as Americans (to counter the rancor in Washington and on the airwaves), but also to create opportunities for our students to develop civic character.

A survey of Americans shows the public wants schools to provide stronger civic education programs. The study, Classroom to Citizen: American Attitudes on Civic Education, was released in December 2004 by the Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools, the Center for Civic Education, the National Conference of State Legislatures, and the Center on Congress at Indiana University.

Although the public believes the most important goal of public schools is to develop basic skills, seven in 10 believe preparing students to be competent and responsible citizens is a “central purpose of public school.”

Americans rank civic education as just as important as preparing students for college.

In fact, the survey found that large majorities see civic education as important for “maintaining a healthy democracy” (91 percent), developing “responsible citizens” (94 percent), “improving student academic achievement” (85 percent), “preparing students for employment” (84 percent), and “improving student behavior” (80 percent).

Another aspect of this work is the broader issue of engaging the adults in the community in dialogue. You’ve heard me talk about how NSBA’s Key Work of School Boards not only calls for boards to focus on raising student achievement, but stresses the critical role of boards to engage with, talk with, listen to, and work with their communities.

A connected community will support its schools. But more important, a community that is engaged and working toward common goals (and what better goal than making our schools strong) is a community where citizens trust, respect, and care for one another and our children.

When disparate groups within a community can come together and identify common-ground points they agree on, you build trust and create a chance for dialogue when there is a crisis or a misunderstanding.

Too frequently, though, school leaders are not truly engaged with the various groups within a community. As a result, you get cliques bickering over the teaching of science, Bible clubs, or other issues.

Sometimes, school districts call in Charles Haynes, CEO of the First Amendment Center, to help resolve a conflict, but it’s often too late -- after a lawsuit has already been filed. As he said, at a recent meeting of the Learning First Alliance (a coalition of 16 education organizations), “These school communities want to purchase the fire engine after the fire has already started.”

According to Haynes, it is tougher to begin civil conversations during a crisis, but it’s often a crisis that becomes the trigger for dialogue.

Let’s not wait for a crisis, though. Let’s start now to bring various groups to the table and begin the process of defining common ground -- what the community wants for its schools, its students, and for the community itself.

Do what the Pleasanton Unified School District in California has done. This district began by incorporating character education into its schools, then into the entire school district, and ultimately, created a “community of character.”

Defining our core values -- those values we want our children to learn -- is a good place to start. You’ll be amazed at how much agreement there could be among a broad diversity of community members. After all, we all live in America. E pluribus unum.