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No Story Goes Untold: iCivics’ New Video Series Untold Stories: Changemakers of the Civil Rights Era

Posted on by icivics

There is an African proverb that says, “As long as you speak my name I shall live forever.” As a former U.S. History teacher, I purposefully spent a lot of time speaking the names of people who didn’t usually make it into the history books. I wanted my students to see diverse historical figures, but also see that regular, everyday people could make a difference. And I was pretty proud of my knowledge of lesser known figures…until I headed up iCivics’ Untold Stories project.

Our Untold Stories series consists of five short (2 minutes or less) animated videos designed to shed light on hidden heroes in the Civil Rights Movement. My task was to research their stories, write the script summaries, and work with the crew at Makematic, our video production company who pioneered the Untold project, to oversee the final products. Easy, I thought. But when I sat down to research, I was both humbled and pleasantly surprised.

With the exception of the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund, I had never heard of the people I was researching. “How could this be?” I thought. I taught this material for 16 years! Dismayed, I pulled out my heavily annotated, dog-eared copy of Eyes on the Prize by Juan Williams. Surely, lawyer and federal judge Constance Baker Motley must be in here. She was, but only twice and only as part of a list of lawyers involved in NAACP cases. Hmm. The other names weren’t listed in my sundry resources either. So, I was off to the Internet.

There were online sources, but there were multiple discrepancies in the details. These Untold Stories really were untold. In my search for accuracy (or the best that I could get) I started digging deeper. I was soon horrified that I had taught civil rights for so long without knowing any of these people. How could I not know of Barbara Johns, a 16-year-old who led a student protest that ended up as a legal case and part of Brown v. Board of Education? My students would have loved that story! And J.D. and Ethel Shelley? Theirs is the stuff of Hollywood movies—risking everything to make a secret arrangement for a white woman to buy their house so they could circumvent a restrictive covenant. 

And then there’s the story of Autherine Lucy and Pollie Ann Myers. When I started researching it, most of the information was about Autherine. She was the first African American to actually attend classes at the University of Alabama. In the resources, Pollie Ann was mentioned nominally as the friend who applied with her, but was later dismissed by the university. I couldn’t even find visuals of Pollie Ann for the animators to use. Since scripts have to be short, Pollie Ann got limited mention there too. But when my supervisor reviewed the script, she made a note about Pollie Ann. She wrote, “Thank you for not writing her out of history.” And there it was. I almost did the exact same thing the history books had. It saddened me to realize how easy it would have been to erase her from history. With help from our Makematic producer, I was even able to contact the Myers family for more information about Pollie Ann and include it in the video’s Teacher’s Guide. As it turns out, it was actually Pollie Ann’s idea to challenge the University of Alabama’s segregation policy. 

What I love about these videos is that they present the stories of ordinary people to whom students can relate. And because of that, the videos provide an opportunity for deep and meaningful class discussions about oppression, racism, and change. They can be used to demonstrate how protest and civic action are carefully planned, strategic events—not random, accidental moments. They can show that advocating for change involves risk, sacrifice, and sometimes, violence. And, in the case of Autherine and Pollie Ann, they can explore how laws or courtroom victories don’t necessarily bring the social change they promise. Lastly, the topics covered in all of the videos can be easily tied to current events. 

The videos and their accompanying Teacher’s Guides were a pure revelation to make. I hope they generate a renewed interest in the lesser known people behind the Civil Rights Movement. I hope they inspire passionate discussions about government, laws, and the power of people to create change in a democracy. But most of all, I hope they allow the names of these changemakers to be spoken, so that their spirits can live on forever.

Explore the Videos & Guides

Written by Lora De Salvo

Lora De Salvo is a Curriculum Associate at iCivics. She has 16 years of experience teaching U.S. history and U.S. government courses at the two-year college and high school levels. She has also worked as a training specialist with the Anti-Defamation League facilitating anti-bias and anti-bullying programs with middle and high school students.

Classroom Resources for National County Government Month

Posted on by icivics

Updated April 3, 2023

Young people care about their communities and want to play a part in helping them thrive. That’s what makes National County Government Month, held each April by the National Association of Counties, such a great time to talk with your kids about the role local government plays in keeping your community safe, healthy, and growing.

We have many resources to help you start conversations and learn together. With these lesson plans and learning resources, students will gain knowledge about how their county government is organized, what it does, who’s in charge, and how they can get involved.

County Government Lesson Plan (for High School)

This lesson covers the diversity in county government structure, duties and services as well as the budgeting process. Students will investigate the impact of unfunded mandates and work to balance a county budget.

County Basics WebQuest

There’s no better way to learn about county governments than starting with your own. In this WebQuest, students will explore the web to learn more about their own county and what it does.

Counties Work Game

Make room for fun this National County Government Month with Counties Work! With this game, students will learn about local government by playing a county official responding to citizen requests.

Counties Work: Texas

Teaching in Texas? Assign this state adaptation of Counties Work to teach students all about Texas county government.

County Contributions Infographic

Are your students visual learners? This infographic is perfect for teaching about the different departments within the county government and what they do to keep the county running.

County Solutions Plan Unit

The county level is also a great place for students to advocate for issues they care about. In this multi-lesson unit, students will select a community issue they’d like to know more about and address. Then, they’ll examine the context of their issues — including the role of county and other levels of government — and develop strategies to bring about local change.

Interested in who supports National County Government Month? Check out the National Association of Counties to learn more about National County Government Month and activities for students.

iCivics in Dual Language Teaching: How to Utilize iCivics Resources to Engage English and Multilingual Learners

Posted on by icivics

Five years ago, I was presented with the opportunity to begin a Dual Language Social Studies program at my middle school. I was honored and excited by the challenge, but I quickly became discouraged at the lack of materials in Spanish. I was able to find materials and textbooks from other Spanish-speaking countries to assist me in the classroom, since World History is taught in most countries. It was not until I began teaching Civics and U.S. History that I realized there was a severe lack of resources in Spanish for a Dual Language classroom. 

While I searched for Spanish material specific to U.S. Government and History, I found iCivics had a plethora of materials for me to use! I began by using the interactive games iCivics created and translating some of the activities and articles I found  for the days I needed to teach in Spanish. Thanks to the iCivics English Learner (EL) supports, I was able to use their games and articles on my English days as well!

In a Dual Language classroom, the teacher is not only a content expert, but a language teacher. Half of my students had only been in the U.S. for a little over a year, and the other half merely months! I not only had to teach academic English, but civics to a large portion of students who had only experienced a dictatorship vs. democracy.

Then, in October of 2019, I was asked to teach civics to roughly 20 monolingual Spanish-speaking students who had just arrived in the U.S. Now, I do not have to tell you that test scores matter. Anyone in education knows this. So, when I received these students, I was about a month and a half into my curriculum and two and a half months from the semester exam. The iCivics lessons and my translations saved the day! When teaching a new language, the focus should be on five core domains: speaking, listening, reading, writing and culture. What was so amazing was how the iCivics lessons covered every domain as well as the three modes of communication (interpersonal, presentational, intrapersonal) in their activities!

Whether it was learning about Hobbes and Locke in Why Government? or participating in student activities like the foldables in Colonial Influences, my students began to develop a clear and purposeful understanding of how the government of the U.S. came to be. I also greatly appreciated how culturally relevant and sensitive the lessons were.

When learning about the different types of governments using Who Rules?, my students were fascinated to learn there were other countries with governments similar to the ones they left. The iCivics games were also helpful. After studying about the path to citizenship, I assigned the iCivics game, “¿Tengo Algún Derecho?” (Do I Have a Right?). Because the game was in Spanish, my students were able to play individually and with their parents; and I personally loved that my students and their parents began to develop a deep appreciation for the country that embraced them!     

Explore iCivics’ EL Resources

When the pandemic hit, everything changed. I had to find a new way to have my students interact with the text on their own. This is so difficult for an English Learner and their families. It is no secret that most students learn best from working together, but for an EL, this is crucial.

Thankfully, Kami and iCivics formed a partnership which allows student documents to be interactive and fun! One of their favorite lessons was the Civil Rights court cases before and after Jim Crow. It allowed them to see the “why” and “how” our laws are made. Though the iCivics lesson, Jim Crow, covers a lot of general information, my students loved learning about the individual court cases like Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education. They could relate to the cases and the opinion of the court based on their own lives. The game “Guerra de Argumentos” (Argument Wars) allowed me to extend that knowledge of citizens’ civil rights and the Bill of Rights by having them interact with the information when we could not have discussions. 

The fact that some of the iCivics games are in Spanish allowed me to reinforce the content in their native language and provided students with the opportunity to work with their parents in learning about our laws and government. Parent involvement in our country’s laws and government is so important to developing good citizens. The most important thing iCivics helped me do was to help prepare my students to be responsible and active future citizens of the U.S.

 

Written By Verónica Schmidt-Gómez, MEd

Veronica teaches Dual Language World History, Dual Language Civics, and Dual Language U.S. History at Pierce Middle School in Tampa, FL. She has been a member of the iCivics Educator Network since 2020. Follow her on Twitter at: @SraGomezDual.

Civics for All: Empowering English and Multilingual Learners

Posted on by icivics

“For me, civic education is the key to inspiring kids to want to stay involved in making a difference,” says Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, U.S. Supreme Court, Board Member of iCivics, a nonprofit focused on civics education. 

Civics has been getting a lot of attention lately, with many adults scrambling to recall and apply basic concepts as history is made around us. Even with a rise in this civic awareness, many social studies teachers report discomfort with teaching civics in the current political climate.

Social studies teachers can create classrooms that are safe spaces for students to talk about current events and have discussions about issues that many deem controversial. Civic education prepares students with the skills and attitudes that are necessary in a democracy including a sense of civic responsibility, critical thinking, and agency. iCivics is committed to providing high-quality and effective civic learning materials that are accessible—and engaging—for all students, including English language learners. Confianza, a professional learning organization that collaborates with iCivics, is focused on ensuring equity for language learners.

English language learners, also known as ELLs, ELs, emergent bilinguals, multilingual learners, and MLs, represent a growing segment of the U.S. public school population where almost 1 in 10 students nationwide is identified as an English learner. While ELs all have learning English and content simultaneously in common, this group is extremely diverse, speaking more than 400 languages across all kinds of school districts—urban, suburban, exurban and rural—with Spanish being the most common language. Most English learners are students of color who may be facing systemic racism within and beyond the classroom door. How can we deliver civics instruction to this student population in a way that can make an impact? How can we help empower them with the knowledge and skills they need to thrive in America?

Proficiency in English is linked to academic success and is a key role in preparing them to be knowledgeable and engaged. ELs/MLs score very low in civic knowledge: they fared the worst of any population measured, with only 1% demonstrating proficiency. In fact, four out of five ELs do not even have “basic” understanding in civics. (NAEP, 2014) Therefore, English learners, and all students, need access to high-quality civic education.

“We are not going to be able to prepare citizens of the world if they can’t debate or think critically. And the debate needs to be open and civil.” Dr. Socorro Herrera, professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, College of Education at Kansas State University and Executive Director of the Center for Intercultural and Multilingual Advocacy (CIMA). 

Teachers need materials to help foster civic engagement and skills in an engaging, culturally-relevant way that is tailored to the needs of all students—especially ELs/MLs. Game-based learning is a great way to fill this need. Experiential learning is a fun and engaging way for students to learn. With iCivics games, students have agency; they get to “be” a Supreme Court Justice, the president, a constitutional lawyer, and more. They learn about civic institutions and government while playing. They can also make mistakes and try again. All of this helps build the confidence and critical-thinking skills they need to then engage in class discussions.   

“If we do this right, we are opening spaces for our ELs/MLs not only to have access to learn the language, but also the critical space to analyze the ins and outs of how America works. As an immigrant coming in, in my own formation, that was exactly how it did.” says Dr. Katherine Barko-Alva, Assistant Professor and Director of the ESL/Bilingual Education program at William & Mary School of Education. She added: “To come here and have a class where they can explore differences and ramifications of those actions. How powerful is that? That’s why I love culturally, linguistically diverse biography-driven instruction.”

According to Larry Ferlazzo, author, blogger, and English and Social Studies teacher at Luther Burbank High School in CA, “I think it’s critical that civics education be an important part of classes we teach for English Language Learners (and, of course, for ALL students). Political participation has not always been a safe or effective option in their home countries.  Schools in the U.S. have traditionally viewed one of their responsibilities as developing responsible citizens, so we need to help equip our English Language Learners with the knowledge and tools to become “active citizens”—to know not only how our political process works, but to know how to use their power to make that process, and our communities, better.  Being able to pass a civics or citizenship test is one thing, but I think we teachers need to also equip our students with the skills to be able to apply that knowledge to create social change.”

So, where can educators go to find tips and strategies for teaching civics to English learners? Kristen Chapron from iCivics and Sarah Ottow from Confianza have pulled together some free resources to help you get started:

About Confianza:

Confianza is a professional learning organization that builds cultural understanding, communication, and collaboration between educators and multilingual learners. Our framework is based on fostering equity-based mindsets and language and literacy practices. Through tailored coaching, practical guidance, and world-class content, we positively change the lives of teachers and students. Check out our free blog at: www.ellconfianza.com.

Youth As Civic Experts Network Launches Social Media Campaign

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How can we improve civic education to make it more relatable and equitable for all?? The Youth As Civics Experts Network is calling all students across the country to help answer this question and provide insights into what an equitable civic education means for them so that stakeholders in their local school communities can use youth feedback to inform policy writing and curriculum.

The #CivicsForUs social media campaign, which launched this week, is a new project from the Youth As Civic Experts Network, iCivics’ nationwide network of middle and high school students advocating for equitable civic education. Between March and June, the Youth As Civic Expert Network students will use the hashtag #CivicsForUS to engage other young people in a conversation and give them the opportunity to share their experiences in their local communities. The listening tour asks students from 5th grade through college to share first-hand why they feel civic education is so important right now, and how it can be more equitable and relevant to them and their peers. 

So far, the effort has collected more than 4,700 responses from 43 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. When asked what civic education and civic engagement look like in schools, the top two selections from students 5th through college were U.S. Government or social studies classes and student council or student government. A full analysis and report will be provided this summer.

“Our students worked hard to gain insight from peers, including students who are not usually brought into these kinds of discussions, while also learning important digital skills to tell this story. I’m really excited to see what these students come up with,” said Amber Coleman-Mortley, iCivics’ Director of Social Engagement and Fellowship Program Director.

Do your students have a vision of what equitable civic education looks like to them? Share this project and encourage them to add their voice through the #CivicsForUS hashtag and https://www.civicsforus.org.

About the Youth As Civic Experts Network

The Youth As Civic Experts Network, a project of iCivics funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, was designed to engage students in conversation so that adults and stakeholders in school communities can use youth feedback to inform policy writing and curriculum, and ultimately change the way they engage with students to create civic experiences. The Youth As Civic Experts Network includes paid and unpaid fellows and alumni program students grades 8–12 from 15 states representing a diverse cross-section of experiences throughout the U.S. These students meet monthly for seminars to discuss equity in civic education with the iCivics team.

Women’s History Month in the Classroom: Teaching Resources and Activities to Celebrate Pioneering Women

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March is Women’s History Month. At iCivics, March has always been a meaningful time as we celebrate pioneering women like our founder, Sandra Day O’Connor, the first female U.S. Supreme Court Justice. For educators and students, this month also provides an opportunity to celebrate the myriad accomplishments of American women. To get you excited about bringing this celebration into the classrooms, we’re highlighting resources to inspire celebration and discussion around women’s contributions, struggles, and triumphs throughout history. 

Students and the Struggle for School Integration

In this video, part of our new student-facing video series,students learn about the activism of teenager Barbara Johns, who organized over 400 students to protest in support of better conditions at their segregated high school in Prince Edward County, Virginia. This protest would lead to a lawsuit that became one of the five cases represented in the landmark Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education.

Founding Mothers

We’ve heard a lot about the role the Founding Fathers played in the early United States, but what role did our Founding Mothers play? This mini-lesson looks at the contributions of women in the Revolutionary War and the founding of the U.S. 

Movement & Action: The Women’s Suffrage Movement

How did women win the right to vote? What civic actions were taken to gain political equality? In this WebQuest, students will learn about four civic tactics that supporters of women’s suffrage took to move the nation to ratify the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote.

Explore the History of Voting Rights in America

Dive into voting rights! Our latest customizable Google Slide Deck that provides an overview of voting in the U.S. from the 19th amendment and beyond— exploring the evolution of voting and how disenfranchised groups gained the right to vote.

Empower Students to Become Active Citizens During Civics Week in New York, March 8-12

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Voting is an essential part of a citizen’s civic responsibility. The classroom, young citizens’ first civic space, provides a unique opportunity to prepare students for a life of active citizenship. This Civics Week in New York, we invite you to celebrate youth voice, civic empowerment, and the importance of registering to vote with your class and help students understand how they can make a change in their communities.

From lesson plans to interactive games, iCivics has compiled a list of resources to engage students and empower them to become informed active voters:

 

Rank Your Choice

Just in time for ranked-choice voting to be introduced to New York elections, iCivics has released our new infographic, Rank Your Choice, diving into this unique election system. This printable infographic walks students through the process step-by-step and discusses the pros and cons of ranked-choice voting.

Cast Your Vote

While registering to vote and heading to the polling place is a critical step, doing the proper research on the candidates and the issues that matter is just as important. This game is all about teaching students how to evaluate the candidates, the issues they care about, and the arguments on both sides.

Voting Matters Activity

Becoming a voter starts with voter registration. Even if students may be too young to vote, it’s never too early to learn. This lesson plan helps students understand the importance of voting and the process of getting registered.

Students Power Elections

Beyond the ballot box, there are many more ways for students to take civic action and influence an election. In addition to teaching the voter registration process, this lesson plan also discusses issue advocacy and how to encourage others to vote as well.

New DBQuest on Historical Monuments & Meaning

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Civil War memorials have been in the news over the last few years, and we’re sure your students have questions. Why are some being removed? Why do people want to keep them? It’s just a statue, right?

The monuments and statues honoring individuals from this period play a critical role in shaping our memory and understanding of the Civil War today. There is no one right way to view a monument. Each has its own unique history and motivation of how it came to be. And that history is ripe for inquiry, exploration, discussion, and consideration in understanding the monuments around us.

To help students gain a broader understanding of these monuments and the legacy of this period, iCivics has released a new DBQuest focusing on one of these monuments, the Freedmen’s Memorial in Washington, DC. This DBQuest examines the complicated nature of memorial statues by diving into primary sources that reveal the statues origins, design elements, and a critique by a leading voice of the time, Frederick Douglass.

Great for remote learning, our new DBQuest allows students to:

  • Explain how monuments are historical sources that need to be analyzed and interpreted
  • Use a variety of primary sources to make an argument about the monument’s intent
  • Develop historical empathy
  • Use evidence from informational texts to support analysis and answer questions

Please note that the language and terminology used in this content reflects the context and culture of the time of its creation, and may include culturally sensitive information. As an historical document, its contents may be at odds with contemporary views and terminology. The information within this collection does not reflect the views of iCivics, but is available in its original form to facilitate research.

New Game, New Partnership: Promoting Global Civics with the Council on Foreign Relations

Posted on by Luke O'Connor

As global tensions rise in Europe and the COVID-19 pandemic enters its third year, there is an increased urgency to help students build an understanding of U.S. foreign policy.

Our new game, Convene the Council, created in partnership with the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), uses digital gameplay to teach important foreign policy and global civics lessons in an engaging way. Students who play Convene the Council step inside the Situation Room and assume the role of the president of the U.S., making foreign policy decisions through 20 different fictional foreign policy scenarios that reveal how foreign and domestic policy are intertwined and how decisions made in one corner of the world can affect us all. The game’s scenarios challenge students to use critical thinking skills to determine how the U.S. should respond based on recommendations from the president’s closest advisors.

As two organizations with the shared goal of empowering students and lifelong learners with the know-how needed to be responsible citizens, we are proud to have partnered with CFR on this game and to bring global civics, which expands and modernizes the field of civics education for our globalized era, into the spotlight.

This game was made in partnership with the Council on Foreign Relations, with support from The Peter G. Peterson Fund – New York Community Trust.

Play the Game

Meet the Council on Foreign Relations

CFR Education focuses on global civics, providing students with the knowledge, skills, and perspective—the global literacy—required to navigate our interconnected world, and preparing them to confront our era’s most pressing issues.Global civics recognizes that the world is more interconnected than ever before; that we live in an era when ideas, behaviors, products, and news spread more quickly and broadly than at any other time in history; and that the challenges and opportunities that define our era don’t stop at one country’s borders.

CFR is working to put global literacy back into the spotlight by meeting students where they are with relevant, compelling case studies and innovative multimedia content.It also acknowledges that learners of all ages must be equipped with the tools necessary to steer through the churn of the daily news cycle and a social media landscape often littered with misinformation.

CFR Education’s teaching global civics has involved using the intense, international popularity of Korean pop music to help students understand concepts like soft power; serving up avocado toast as an example of how the global supply chain affects what’s for brunch; and going behind the firewall to highlight how computer viruses now operate as modern-day tools of foreign policy.

Explore global civics resources from the Council on Foreign Relations:

CFR’s two award-winning digital learning products, World101 and Model Diplomacy, provide an essential baseline for a global civics curriculum and encourage learners ages 14 and up to embrace a world that functions on the fundamental principles of democracy.

  • World101 is a growing library of free educational resources that makes complex international relations and foreign policy issues accessible to all learners using videos, interactive maps, infographics, quizzes, and online teaching materials.
  • Model Diplomacy is a free classroom simulation program that invites students to step into the shoes of decision makers on the National Security Council or United Nations Security Council to debate the world’s most pressing issues.

CFR also recently released its first-ever music video—a guaranteed bop!

Education and Philanthropy Leaders Larry Kramer, Andrea Foggy-Paxton, and Gerard Robinson Join iCivics’ Board of Directors

Posted on by icivics

iCivics today announced that three remarkable leaders in education and philanthropy, Larry Kramer, Andrea Foggy-Paxton, and Gerard Robinson, have joined the organization’s Board of Directors.

Kramer, Foggy-Paxton, and Robinson will play a critical role in iCivics’ expanded scope to help create an American school system that is committed to providing high-quality civic education to all students.

iCivics, which U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor founded in 2009, has long been the country’s leading provider of civic education content, creating online games and digital resources that are now used by more than 120,500 educators and 7.6 million students annually. All of its content is free to use and completely nonpartisan.

The organization has expanded its scope in recent years and has embarked on a strategic mission and plan to help create an American school system that is committed to providing high-quality civic education to all students, regardless of the color of their skin, zip code, or native tongue—and to helping all young people build civic agency.

Kramer, Foggy-Paxton, and Robinson will play a critical role in iCivics’ expansion, as each brings a unique professional background and personal perspective to the Board, as well as an incredible depth of knowledge and experience in education.

“I am delighted that our Board will benefit from such great talent,” says iCivics’ executive director, Louise Dubé.” We have added significant depth of expertise in strategy, education and policy, which will be very useful to iCivics as we seek to expand and re-imagine civic education to strengthen our constitutional democracy.”

American legal scholar and non-profit executive Larry Kramer has been President of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation since 2012. He has guided the foundation in maintaining its long-standing commitment to areas of concern, such as education, and has overseen initiatives to respond to pressing and timely problems, such as democratic dysfunction and cybersecurity. Kramer previously served as the Richard E. Lang Professor of Law and Dean of Stanford Law School. Earlier in his career, he served as law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr, and as professor of law at the University of Chicago, New York University and University of Michigan law schools.

“I’m honored to join the Board of iCivics and contribute to its important mission of strengthening civic education in America,” Kramer said. “I welcome the chance to work with the talented team at iCivics and its broad coalition of partners to help ensure that every young person has the knowledge and skills necessary to fulfill their potential to be an informed, engaged participant in civic life.”

The founder and CEO of Foggy-Paxton Consulting, Andrea Foggy-Paxton, has devoted her career to expanding excellence and equity in education in the non-profit sector, including hands-on experience with translating theory into practice and implementing innovative new curricula in the classroom. She served as the Managing Director for Partner Strategy for the Broad Center and oversaw the L.A. Promise Fund Schools Committee. Previously, she was the executive vice president at Reasoning Mind, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing first-rate math instruction for all students and worked for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, developing and managing innovations in professional development, high-school transformation, college completion and personalized-learning grants. Previously, she worked for L.A. Youth at Work, Rock the Vote, and Freedom Schools.

“I am excited to join the iCivics Board given the importance of civic education in my own K-12 experience and the overwhelming need to deepen and evolve our civics education across all grade levels so that every child is prepared to participate in our democracy,” said Foggy-Paxton.

Vice President for Education at the Advanced Studies in Culture Foundation, Gerard Robinson, has more than 30 years of professional experience in both the public and private sector. He has a significant knowledge of and commitment to education policy, both in theory and practice, having served as Commissioner of Education for the State of Florida and Secretary of Education for the Commonwealth of Virginia. Previously, he was the executive director of the Center for Advancing Opportunity and was the director and president of the Black Alliance for Educational Options. He is the co-editor of Education for Liberation: The Politics of Promise and Reform Inside and Beyond America’s Prisons (2019) and Education Savings Accounts: The New Frontier in School Choice (2017).

“Joining the iCivics Board is a great honor for me,” said Robinson. “I look forward to working with a group of people who come from different walks of life, yet, choose to walk together on a highway called civic knowledge to improve civic participation for young people and adults through technology, public policy, and fun.”

iCivics is still committed to creating high-quality, free and nonpartisan content that every teacher and school can use. But it will also look to the new Board members to help build upon the work of its new strategic plan to achieve a system-wide mind-shift about civic education, with the goal of putting in place new and more rigorous policies to ensure high-quality civic education in 20 states by 2026.

In 2018, iCivics founded the CivXNow coalition—a cross-ideological movement of more than 150 influential organizations, foundations, universities and civic education providers who are collectively working to make high-quality and equitable civic education a centerpiece of modern education nationwide.

And on March 2, 2021 it will help unveil the Roadmap to Educating for American Democracy, an unprecedented, cross-ideological effort to build excellence in civic and history education for all K-12 students. The Educating for American Democracy (EAD) initiative was funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the U.S. Department of Education and was led by a team drawn from iCivics, Harvard University, Arizona State University, and Tufts University’s Tisch College of Civic Life and Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning & Engagement (CIRCLE).

“We are incredibly excited that Larry Kramer, Andrea Foggy-Paxton, and Gerard Robinson have agreed to join the iCivics’ Board,” the chair of iCivics’ Board, Wendy May, said. “We believe iCivics will benefit immensely from their diverse perspectives, relevant professional experience, impeccable reputations in the field of education, links to relevant networks of influence, and, most importantly, their deep commitment to the cause of civic education.”

For more information contact [email protected].

About iCivics
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor founded in 2009 to transform civic education and rebuild civic strength through digital games and lesson plans. It is the country’s largest provider of civic education content and is currently used by more than 120,500 educators and 7.6 million students annually. All of its games are free, nonpartisan, and available at www.icivics.org.