How does one summarize five years of transformative professional experiences in a few paragraphs? You don’t—but I’ll try. After five years of coordinating the CivxNow coalition, I decided to leave my role as Director of Coalition Engagement at iCivics to pursue a new professional chapter of public service. I leave this work with deep faith, gratitude, and hope in all of you, and I look forward to cheering your efforts from the sidelines.
During my time here, I’ve told everybody I’ve spoken to, “You may have a good job, but I have a better job—the best job, in all of education.” I’ve meant it. I’ve had the opportunity to work with some of the most deeply mission-oriented individuals and organizations in the country, facilitating a truly pluralistic collective with individuals and organizations working toward essential missions.
My experiences included the launch of the Roadmap to Educating for American Democracy, the inaugural and subsequent powerful Civic Learning Weeks, progress in integrating civics into the AI and education landscape, and witnessing the coalition grow from 170 to well over 400 organizations.
I’m proud of these accomplishments, but what I’ve found most fulfilling are the friendships and relationships that I’ve formed. That’s what I’ll take with me. There are talented people in this field who could be making more money and working less, but they choose to invest themselves in something greater: the health of the world’s oldest modern democracy. I can’t think of a more important vocation. If public office is a sacred trust, so is civic learning.
Great public servants work as hard for people who disagree with them as they do for those who agree; great civic learning organizations do the same. We are in the business of planting seeds for something bigger and better than any single issue of the day; we’re in the business of planting seeds for a stronger, more vibrant, and inclusive democracy.
At its best, that’s what public service does, and that’s what great civic learning does. I will carry our work together in this new professional chapter of public service as part of who I am. I hope you continue to shepherd the CivxNow coalition during this 250th year of our constitutional democracy and contribute to its strength and sustenance for years to come.
In civics,
Ace Parsi
