Center for Civic Education

The Center for Civic Education (CCE) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan corporation affiliated with the State Bar of California. The Center’s mission is to foster the development of informed, responsible participation in civic life by citizens who are committed to the values and principles that are fundamental to American constitutional democracy. CCE develops and implements programs in civic education for public and private schools at elementary and secondary levels, cooperating with educators and scholars in the social sciences, humanities, and law. The Center offers curricular materials, leadership training, teacher education, and research and evaluation in civic education. It can assist with program development, teacher training, use of community resources, and programmatic and financial support. CCE supports the LRE programs described below.

Program Highlights

The School Violence Prevention Demonstration Program is attempting to measure the effects of civic education on student attitudes that are correlated with violent behavior. Evaluative studies of the program will determine whether civic education instruction, using high-quality materials and professional development for teachers, can serve as a protective factor against violent behavior.

We the People. . . Project Citizen is a civic education program for middle school students that promotes competent and responsible participation in State and local governments. Its curriculum actively engages students in learning how to monitor and influence public policy. Each class produces a portfolio that displays its work and presents this portfolio to other classes or community groups. Classes also may enter their portfolios in a local competition with other classes. Some States also participate in the national Project Citizen portfolio competition. Project Citizen materials are available in English and Spanish.

We the People. . . The Citizen and the Constitution is a nationally acclaimed program that focuses on the history and principles of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights for upper elementary, middle, and high school students. The program’s curriculum enhances students’ understanding of the institutions of American constitutional democracy and helps them identify the contemporary relevance of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. The program’s culminating activity is a simulated congressional hearing in which students demonstrate their knowledge while they evaluate, take, and defend positions on relevant historical and contemporary constitutional issues. CCE also sponsors competitions in the format of hearings at the State and national levels.

The National Campaign To Promote Civic Education is a joint effort of CCE and other organizations to foster more sustained and systematic attention to civic education in the country’s schools. This campaign has two important objectives: to reaffirm the civic mission of the Nation’s schools and to encourage States and school districts to devote sustained and systematic attention to civic education from kindergarten through grade 12.

Civitas: An International Civic Education Exchange Program is a cooperative project of a consortium of civic education organizations in the United States and other participating nations. The program is supported by the U.S. Department of Education and is being conducted with the cooperation of the United States Information Agency and its affiliated offices throughout the world. Participants sponsor seminars and exchanges of delegations of educators, scholars, and officials and jointly adapt and develop curricular materials to enhance civic competence and responsibility among youth in emerging and established democracies.

Publications

The Exercises in Participation Series includes two documents that are of particular relevance to LRE. Drugs in the Schools: Preventing Substance Abuse provides a seven-lesson student book and teacher’s guide to help students develop a school drug prevention program. Violence in the Schools: Developing Prevention Plans provides a nine-lesson student book and teacher’s guide to help students develop school violence prevention plans. This series offers upper elementary and middle school students the opportunity to learn to cooperate with their peers by examining and proposing remedies for contemporary issues facing the United States and the world. Designed to be incorporated into social studies, language arts, or health courses or advisory periods, the series encourages classroom participation by community resource people such as police officers, legislators, judges, and State and local government officials.

National Standards for Civics and Government identifies what students should know in the fields of civics and government when they complete grades 4, 8, and 12. The standards have been endorsed by civic and professional groups and are being used by States and local school districts.

CIVITAS: A Framework for Civic Education is a comprehensive model for civic education for children from kindergarten through grade 12. CIVITAS sets forth in detail the civic knowledge, skills, dispositions, and commitments necessary for effective citizenship in the 21st century.

Comparative Lessons for Democracy was developed as a resource book for high school teachers as part of the Civitas program. The lessons actively engage students in comparative analyses of the histories and transitions of emerging democracies in central and Eastern Europe. The volume includes lesson plans and resource materials intended for use in high school government, comparative government, world history, and current affairs classes.

American Legacy: The U.S. Constitution and Other Essential Documents of American Democracy is a pocket-size guide to the Nation’s core documents, such as the Declaration of Independence and the Gettysburg Address, with passages from other documents that encompass essential ideas of American democracy.

The Foundations of Democracy Series is a comprehensive civic education curriculum for teachers and students based on four concepts that are fundamental to understanding constitutional democracy: authority, privacy, responsibility, and justice. Classroom materials progress in scope and complexity from kindergarten through grade 12. They emphasize cooperative learning and student participation and include stories, cases, and extensive illustrations. Teacher’s guides help instructors with discussions, writing exercises, cooperative group work, simulations of town meetings, board hearings, legislative debates, mediation, trials, and alternative assessment strategies.

Training Opportunities

CCE offers a number of training opportunities for teachers, generally during the summer months. Each July, CCE sponsors a 3-week national academy, Political and Constitutional Theory for Citizens, for American and international teacher-scholars to study major works of political theory. Five regional 1-week institutes prepare educators to participate in the We the People…The Citizen and the Constitution program by examining the seminal ideas and texts that formed the foundation of the U.S. Constitution.

Each year, CCE sponsors at least one professional development institute based on the We the People. . . Project Citizen program in Newport, RI. It attracts teachers from the United States and both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Another Project Citizen institute is held in conjunction with the annual meeting of the National Conference of State Legislatures. The conference showcases Project Citizen’s national portfolio competition. CCE also sponsors one training-of-trainers session each year on a selected topic.

Youth for Justice	Juvenile Justice Bulletin • April 2001