Rethinking Civics Education

The youngest voters in the U.S. have historically turned out in lower numbers than any other age group.   And unfortunately analyses of the Nov. 5 elections suggest  that they  turned out in lower numbers than in the 2020 elections. One reason that many educators point to i that traditional civics and American government classes typically fail to engage young people in the democratic process.  That is especially the case for students of color and low-income students. However, exciting new approaches to civics education are emerging. One of them is "action civics," where students take the lead in organizing and implementing projects in their own communities as part of a civics curriculum. In this episode our host Pedro Noguera, Dean of the USC Rossier School of Education, with  Louis Freedberg, Interim CEO of EdSource, interview Rob Filback and Jen Crawford, founders of USC's Democracy Project about these and other promising approaches.  Also on the podcast is Robert Medrano, a project director at  Teach Democracy who has taught social studies for years.  Sign up here so we can keep you posted on future podcasts on how education leaders are responding to the mounting threats against public schools In the United States.