Civic Education Works
Research confirms that students who receive a comprehensive and high-quality civic education are more likely to be informed and actively engaged citizens and voters.
Independent research confirms our resources produce clear and tangible benefits to students—even after controlling for gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. Even more promising: more than half the students that play our games in school play them again at home on their own time.
iCivics materials improve students’ civic knowledge, civic attitudes, and core literacy skills. Students are challenged to learn and engage with the material, and have fun in the process. New evidence is pointing to the power of matching iCivics games with authentic civic engagement experiences.
Key Findings
In the 51st annual Phi Delta Kappa poll of public attitudes on education (2019):
- 97% of Americans said civics should be taught;
- 81% of teachers say students should be required to take a civics class
- Parents (78%), all adults (79%), and teachers (85%) say schools should teach values as well as factual information
- 87–97% of all adults say public school classes on values should cover honesty, civility, respect for authority, and acceptance of people of different religions
- 81% say patriotism should be included
These findings mirror those of The Democracy Project report (2018) that found the most popular (89% support) initiative tested as a way to bolster democracy was to ensure that schools make civic education a bigger part of curriculum. This high level of support remained true across all age, gender, racial, political, socioeconomic, and geographic demographics.
Research Roundup
Prior Months’ Research Roundups:
An Assessment Playbook for Civics
Civics has been lamentably lost in the shuffle in this now-decades-long, high-stakes testing era. However, researchers Laura S. Hamilton and W. Christopher Brandt contend that states, districts, and schools can creatively assess civic learning to ensure universal access, high quality, and students’ civic preparedness in their March 2026 report, Testing Democracy: How Large-Scale Assessment Systems Can Support Civic Learning (Center for Assessment).
The researchers cite CivxNow state policy scan data showing 29 states with some form of civic assessments, yet most employ some version of the U.S. Naturalization Test, an instrument not designed to assess standards proficiency nor course completion. By contrast, Florida’s high-stakes end-of-course assessments in middle and high school civics and American government, respectively, are the exception.
Civic seals, profiled in this month’s feature article are an incentive-based approach by which a growing body of states are assessing students’ civic preparedness. Seals hold significant promise as states and districts seek to measure desired student competencies like deliberation across differences and community engagement.
States, districts, and schools also draw upon school climate surveys to assess students’ civic learning opportunities, along with student participation in advanced courses. Taken together, there is no unified approach by which civics is assessed nationally, although recent news of state-level data from the next NAEP Civics Assessment in 2028 is a major step, yet insufficient by itself.
The researchers recommend that:
- Education leaders engage key stakeholders in conversation about local civic learning priorities;
- A theory of action flows from these conversations, connecting civic learning opportunities with intended student outcomes;
- Civics is integrated into large-scale reading and English/Language Arts (ELA) assessments; and
- This holistic approach to assessment informs ongoing civics-focused school improvement processes.
Thanks to the contributions of Hamilton and Brandt, the civic learning field has a new playbook to strengthen and broaden civic assessment. In turn, this will help to ensure universal access to high-quality civic learning and students’ preparation for informed, effective, and lifelong engagement in our constitutional democracy.
Interview conducted by the Philanthropy Roundtable in conjunction with the CivXNow Policy Summit (2021)
Interview conducted in conjunction with the CivXNow Policy Summit (2021)
What states can learn from the passage of an act to promote and enhance civic engagement (2020)
Interview with Michael A. Rebell regarding civic readiness in New York (2020)
Multiple developments in Florida promise to continue the state’s leadership in providing K-12 civic learning (2020)
Video from Democracy at a Crossroads Summit (2019)
CivxNow documentary showing Chicago’s George Washington High School’s transformation driven by the civic investment of teachers, students, parents, and community members (2019)
Report by the California Task Force on K-12 Civic Learning (2014)
