Making Civics Count

"By nearly every measure, Americans are less engaged in their communities and political activity than generations past.” So write the editors of this volume, who survey the current practices and history of citizenship education in the United States.

They argue that the current period of “creative destruction”—when schools are closing and opening in response to reform mandates—is an ideal time to take an in-depth look at how successful strategies and programs promote civic education and good citizenship.

Making Civics Count offers research-based insights into what diverse students and teachers know and do as civic actors, and proposes a blueprint for civic education for a new generation that is both practical and visionary.

David E. Campbell is professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame and the founding director of the Rooney Center for the Study of American Democracy. He is the coauthor of American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us (2010, with Robert Putnam), which the New York Times describes as “intellectually powerful” and the San Francisco Chronicle as “the most successfully argued sociological study of American religion in more than half a century.” Mr. Campbell is also the author of Why We Vote: How Schools and Communities Shape Our Civic Life (2006); the editor of A Matter of Faith: Religion in the 2004 Presidential Election (2007); and a coauthor of Democracy at Risk: How Political Choices Undermine Citizen Participation and What We Can Do About It (2005). As an expert on religion, politics, young people, and civic engagement, he has often been featured in the national media, including the New York Times, the Economist, USA Today, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Time, NBC News, CNN, NPR, Fox News, and C-SPAN.

Meira Levinson is an associate professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, following eight years working as a middle school teacher in the Atlanta and Boston Public Schools. She writes about the intersection of political theory, education policy, and pedagogical practice. She is the author of No Citizen Left Behind (2012); The Demands of Liberal Education (1999); and the coauthored Democracy at Risk: How Political Choices Undermine Citizen Participation and What We Can Do About It (2005), in addition to numerous articles and book chapters. She has served on the steering committees or boards of the American Political Science Association’s Standing Committee on Civic Education and Civic Engagement, Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools, CIRCLE/Tisch College, Discovering Justice, Generation Citizen, the Civic Ed Project, and the scholarly journal Theory and Research in Education. Ms. Levinson also co-convenes the Civic and Moral Education Initiative at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Frederick M. Hess is resident scholar and director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. He has authored influential books on education, including The Same Thing Over and Over; Education Unbound; Common Sense School Reform; Revolution at the Margins; and Spinning Wheels and pens the Education Week blog “Rick Hess Straight Up.” His work has appeared in scholarly and popular outlets such as Teachers College Record, Harvard Education Review, Social Science Quarterly, Urban Affairs Review, American Politics Quarterly, Chronicle of Higher Education, Phi Delta Kappan, Educational Leadership, U.S. News & World Report, the Washington Post, and the National Review. He has edited widely cited volumes on education philanthropy, stretching the education dollar, the impact of education research, education entrepreneurship, and No Child Left Behind. He serves as executive editor of Education Next; as lead faculty member for the Rice Education Entrepreneurship Program; on the Review Board for the Broad Prize in Urban Education; and on the boards of directors of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, 4.0 SCHOOLS, and the American Board for the Certification of Teaching Excellence. A former high school social studies teacher, he has taught at the University of Virginia, the University of Pennsylvania, Georgetown University, Rice University, and Harvard University.