Civic education is being crowded out of the school day. If the Constitution is taught at all, it’s taught as a dusty piece of parchment written by dead guys in powdered wigs. Not every student will be a mathematician or a physicist, but every student will be a citizen.
What we believe
Student journalism is “participatory civics.” When students start attending government meetings and court hearings, and asking how those agencies work, they learn how a bill really becomes a law. Citizenship education must teach students how to consume and create media, so they can make their voices heard on issues of social and political concern. And the law must protect their right to address those issues free from school retaliation. Censorship teaches students that it is a citizen’s job to make the government look good, and that criticizing the government is an act of disloyalty. It is “civic mis-education.”
What we’re doing about it
- We train young people to use open-records and open-meetings laws to be effective government watchdogs.
- We train high school students to provide reliable coverage of campus and other local issues, filling the void left by cutbacks in the commercial news media.
- We teach young people to understand the workings of the state and federal court systems, and how the Constitution works in their daily lives.
- We track state legislation directly affecting students’ lives and provide them ways to make their voices heard.
How you can help
- Work for state legislative reforms protecting the rights of students to speak freely on matters of public concern.
- Support open-government laws ensuring that college presidential searches include meaningful public input.
- Advocate for direct student representation on every school and college governing body.
- Donate to the scrappy, nonprofit, nonpartisan Student Press Law Center.