It’s not exactly a report card you’d want to tape to the fridge.
The latest Nation’s Report Card, released Wednesday, highlights how eighth-graders are doing in US history and civics. Just 13 percent of students demonstrated proficiency in history on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, and 22 percent hit that target in civics.
The results mark a decline in scores in both subjects since the tests were last administered in 2018. The COVID-19 pandemic is surely a contributing factor, but it is not the whole story. US history scores fell by a similar amount between 2014 and 2018.
The ongoing erosion of students’ history and civics knowledge should sound alarm bells across the country, as educators, policy makers, and parents consider what’s being done — or not — to prepare young people for citizenship.
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There is no state-level information to compare Massachusetts students to their peers nationwide. But Massachusetts can lead in ensuring students know their history and are ready to engage in civic life. The state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education recently revamped its history and social science standards, including for the first time a full-year eighth-grade civics course. The Legislature subsequently passed a law requiring US history and civics to be taught in all Massachusetts public schools, instead of just high schools, and that students lead a civics project in eighth grade and high school.
Such policy pushes are necessary because social studies has been pushed aside. In a survey accompanying the Nation’s Report Card, fewer students reported taking classes focused on US history compared to 2018. Students also reported declining confidence in civics knowledge and skills. Teachers surveyed say they lack the resources or support needed to teach social studies well.
I sit on the state board of education, and I expect these results to renew conversation among my colleagues about whether to add an end-of-year history and civics test to the state’s MCAS testing system — a requirement of the landmark 1993 Education Reform Act that has never been implemented. Research shows teachers spend more time on social studies in states that include the subject in their testing programs. Additional testing won’t be popular in all quarters, but this may be an area where school-level results can be published but left out of accountability ratings. The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education laid the groundwork for such an approach by piloting an innovative performance-based civics assessment for eighth-graders in 2021.
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We can also get creative when it comes to adding social studies to the school day. For example, I’ve seen the magic of weaving material on the civil rights movement into English language arts classes. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” can teach kids a lot about inequality in American history and the power of rhetoric and figurative language.
Reading experts should be on board too. There is plenty of evidence that building students’ background knowledge on important topics, like social studies or science, makes them better readers.
We can also better connect social studies and the arts. I fell in love with history in my elementary school music class. My late teacher, Mrs. Lutterman, worked with us to put on musical theater performances to celebrate the bicentennial of the signing of the US Constitution. We got to perform for members of Congress, and I still remember Senator Edward Kennedy clapping along as we reenacted key moments at the Constitutional Convention through song. “History becomes a part of us as we sing about those characters and events,” Mrs. Lutterman so eloquently said in the introduction of a video recording of one of the performances.
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While proficiency is the goal, too few students are working at what the Nation’s Report Card defines as the “basic” level on the history and civics assessments. Forty percent of US eighth-graders failed to hit that mark in history, and about a third performed below ”basic” in civics. That means they probably would have trouble understanding the historical context of the Gettysburg Address and naming one way Congress fulfills its constitutional responsibilities.
Many Americans rightly worry about the future of our democracy and our ability to work together as a nation to solve collective problems. Fears range from concerns about our fractured politics to mistrust of the press, elected officials, and even each other.
We can’t just throw up our hands at the problem. We have to address it head on, using a range of creative approaches. I know that’s what Mrs. Lutterman would want us to do.
Martin West is academic dean and Shattuck professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, a member of the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, and a member of the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees the Nation’s Report Card.
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