By Taylor Dixon
TheStatehouseFile.com
INDIANAPOLIS—A bill that will require Indiana middle schools to include one semester of civics education was approved by the House Education Committee Wednesday and will now go to the House for consideration.
HB 1384, authored by Rep. Anthony Cook, R-Cicero, creates the Indiana Civic Education Commission, a task force that will oversee new civic learning responsibilities in middle schools.
The bill also includes the stipulation that all middle schools across the state must require one semester of civic learning in sixth, seventh or eighth grade.
The 2019 Indiana Civic Health Index discussed the decline in civic health in Indiana. It also provided teachers with resources and promoted youth programs like the national We the People program, in which students stand in front of mock juries to testify about various issues.
One of the contributors to the 2019 Civic Health Index was Chuck Dunlap, president and CEO of the Indiana Bar Foundation. He said one of the details the Indiana Bar Foundation heard from educators while working on the index was that there was not enough time spent on teaching civics, a broader, more community-based view of government that teaches students how to get involved in their communities. The foundation also found that most students didn’t experience civics until their junior or senior years of high school.
“Civics in general, when it’s taught, increases participation in democracy and decreases cynicism,†Dunlap said.
Dr. Elizabeth Bennion, professor of political science at IU South Bend, agreed. She emphasized that the earlier students are taught and engage in civics, the more likely they are to get involved in politics at a local level.
“The reason it is important at the junior-high level is what will predict future political engagement is past engagement. And we know that civic identity is critical in affecting behavior,†Bennion said.
Indiana ranks among the bottom 15 states for voter registration turnout and has for almost a decade.
Bill Moreau, co-founder and president of the Indiana Citizen Education Foundation and co-contributor to the Indiana Civic Health Index, noted that Indiana saw a 9% increase in voter turnout in 2020. However, with most other states seeing around a 20% increase, Indiana is still likely to end up low in rankings.
“There’s hard data that shows Indiana is in the midst of a slow-motion civic health crisis,†Moreau said.
Part of the reason is the lack of voter interest, which can be traced back to the lack of civic education support, Dunlap said. He also noted a statistic from economics news outlet Marketplacethat says $54 is spent per child in STEM while only five cents is spent per child on civics nationally.
The same study noted “only about 40% of Americans can name all three branches of government, and about 20% can’t name even one.†It will take more than textbook knowledge to fix our civic health crisis, though, Bennion said.
“It is important to recognize that merely focusing on the three branches of government without encouraging critical thinking, media literacy skills, and giving students the opportunity to develop civic skills and practice civic engagement may not be particularly effective,†Bennion said.
Taylor Dixon is a reporter for TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.
FOOTNOTE: Editor’s note: The Statehouse File and the Indiana Citizen Education Foundation are part of a partnership sharing content and some editing resources.
