In a Philadelphia classroom this spring, a fifth grader explained to Professor Danielle Allen that she hoped the kindergarteners knew their civic power.
Allen, a political theorist who focuses on “democracy renovation,” was there to observe a pilot program of civic education in Philadelphia schools. As part of their lesson, the fifth graders were writing a play about the Constitution to perform for younger children.
“And this fifth grader I was talking to leaned in very intensely, and she said, ‘I really, really had to figure out engagement,’” Allen explained. “I really want those kindergartners to engage. I really want those kindergartners to know that their vote counts.’”
Allen, a professor at Harvard College, Harvard Graduate School of Education, and Harvard Kennedy School, told this story on stage as part of HGSE’s Askwith Education Forum series. She sat alongside former Virginia Secretary of Education Aimee Rogstad Guidera, a spring 2026 residential fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics, and Jessica Lander, the 2023 Massachusetts History Teacher of the Year and Director of Practice and Policy at Re-Imagining Migration.
Eric Soto-Shed, a lecturer at HGSE who co-leads the Civics Thinking Project, a research initiative focused on strengthening civics curriculum and instruction moderated the discussion. He led the panelists through a conversation about civic education in the United States, 250 years since the nation’s founding. The panelists discussed the role of schools in preparing engaged citizens, how educators can teach “hard history,” and the nature of democracy itself.
A civics “renaissance”
Rogstad Guidera, Allen, and Lander argued that civics education is foundational to American democracy, and in a divided era, it can help people build the skills they need to engage in productive disagreement with their neighbors. Both Rogstad Guidera and Allen described this moment as a civics “renaissance” on the heels of years of disinvestment.
Starting in the last few decades of the twentieth century, Allen explained, the nation pulled away from social studies and civic education.
“One reason for that disinvestment was just that adults were getting so much more polarized that we could not agree on how we should teach kids. And so we did the tragic thing of agreeing to disagree and do nothing,” she said.
“Adults were getting so much more polarized that we could not agree on how we should teach kids. And so we did the tragic thing of agreeing to disagree and do nothing.”
In 2016, according to the Annenberg Civic Knowledge Survey, just one in four Americans could name all three branches of the United States government. And funding for civics was paltry. In 2022, for instance, the federal government was spending just 15 cents on civics teaching to every $54 spent on STEM education, up from 5 cents the year before.
Now, Allen says, the nation is experiencing a “a renewal.” (The Annenberg survey recently found that over two thirds of Americans can now name all three branches of government.) This renewal is largely taking part in American classrooms, led by teachers and guided by state-level policymaking.
In Lander’s classroom, civics lessons are rooted in action, as students work together to solve real problems in their communities. She says students “care so deeply about their communities but they often don't think that their voices and their ideas are valued.” Civics projects allow them to deepen their sense of their own power.
“My voice is important”
“I see how transformative it is in the classroom. You can’t get that just in the textbooks,” she explains. “You have to have your kids writing the email to a member of their city council, and [they] turn to you going, ‘But this is pretend, right? We’re not actually doing this.’ And you get to go ‘No, you’re actually emailing the city counselor,’ and they get freaked out, but they send that email. And then they get a response.
And those are those beautiful, powerful moments…they come out with ‘my voice is important, and the things I care about have value.’”
These moments are now written into Massachusetts law. Lander explained that since 2018, students are required to learn civics in eighth grade, and to complete “action civics projects” in eighth grade and high school. Importantly, she said, the law comes with funding and programming to train teachers in this type of civics education.
Massachusetts is just one of many states that has renewed its focus on social studies and civics education. In Virginia, Rogstad Guidera led that policy work as secretary of education.
New civics standards
Her efforts aimed to fulfill then-governor Glenn Youngkin’s campaign promise. He’d pledged to make state history standards better reflect the complex truth of Virginia and the United States’ past.
“He would talk on the campaign trail about his commitment to tell all of Virginia’s story, all of the United States' story, all of our stories,” Rogstad Guidera explained.
To tell those stories, Rogstad Guidera and her team solicited input from Virginians.
“We listened to everybody and we brought people together. We had over 25 public hearings. We looked at every single set of standards. We worked with the College Board. We looked at everything that was best in class. We reviewed it, and we kept bringing things up,” she said. “We ended up putting forward standards that I think are some of the best in the nation, and they tell all of our history.”
The new standards guide educators to teach students a fuller and more accurate picture of their state and nation.
“For the first time in the history of Virginia, students will learn that slavery was a primary reason for the Civil War,” she said. “Something they never learned before is that the first enslaved people showed up on Virginia shores at what is now Point Comfort…it was probably taught in some classrooms, but now every single Virginia student will [learn] that.”
“We ended up putting forward standards that I think are some of the best in the nation.”
Rogstad Guidera also pointed to her work on the education steering committee for the Virginia 250th commission. As part of the commission’s focus on civics education, the state is investing in “civics bees” and debate for students. Every middle schooler state-wide will participate in a civics bee this spring, and the state is hosting the National Civics Debate Tournament this June in Richmond.
“On the way back up”
Allen praised Rogstad Guidera’s work, pointing to it as part of that civics “renaissance.”
“We hit bottom in civics a couple of years ago, and we’re actually on the way back up,” she explained. “And the portrait that Aimee just painted about Virginia is what that looks like.”
She suggested that this renewal is also a path out of this moment of national discord—and that those who feel overwhelmed by the national division should get involved in civics education.
“The reason it’s important, I think, that you take away the message that there is a civic-specific education renaissance underway, is because so many people wring their hands and think, ‘You know, nothing’s happening. It’s so dire. There’s nothing I can do,’” Allen said. “So then the question is—‘how can I take part in this civic renewal, this civic renaissance?’”
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Photographs by Jill Anderson
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