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Teaching by Doing: Why Students Are Choosing Civic Seals

  • Mike Dean, Director, Minnesota Programs, iCivics

As noted when this year’s state legislative sessions were wrapping up, states have been answering the call for stronger civics in this 250th year, many through civic seals. This was particularly true in Montana, where the Seal of Civics Literacy came as a result of the state’s 250th commission working

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Doing Civics for Civics – Modeling Civic Participation on Capitol Hill
  • Abbie Kaplan, Director, Federal Policy, Strategy, and Operations, iCivics

Earlier this month, CivxNow, in partnership with colleagues at the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), took to Capitol Hill with a clear, unified mission: advocate for the future of civics, social studies, and history education. The energy, dedication, and passion of the group of advocates who joined us

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States Answer the Call for Stronger Civics Ahead of the 250th
  • Shawn Healy, Chief Policy & Advocacy Officer, iCivics

The moment we’ve been building toward is finally here: the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. But the 250th also represents a call to action for our own times, ensuring that each member of our society has the civic knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary to sustain

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Book Review: More Than Ink and Parchment—Tracing the Living History of the Declaration
  • Shawn Healy, Chief Policy & Advocacy Officer, iCivics

Twenty years ago, as resident scholar at the McCormick Foundation’s Freedom Museum, I guarded a Dunlap Broadside of the Declaration of Independence on opening night, ensuring its safety from guests’ refreshments. Only 21 known Dunlap copies exist of what was the first public pronouncement of American independence, and this was

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Civics in the News

August 2026

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  • James Traub looks into Texas’ move toward a classical model of teaching social studies and history in this op-ed in The New York Times.  
  • Sheria McRae, CEO of Foundation Academies, makes the case for place-based history and helping students see themselves in history in this piece in District Administration.
  • This summer, a group of 98 high school students took the civic act of creating a framework for how AI should be used in schools, according to this story in Education Week.
  • Cal Matters says that allowing kids to vote before they are 18 won’t matter if they aren’t taught how to vote.
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