Connecting Civic Learning and Service-Learning for Education Reform

On January 10, I had the opportunity to attend the U.S. Department of Education and the White House summit on civic learning, “For Democracy’s Future: Education Reclaims our Civic Mission;” a call to action to reverse long-term deficits in civic participation. The summit featured comprehensive reports and presentations by education leaders, including U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. They made a compelling case of the need for education reform.

These sources cited national statistics on declines in public understanding of basic government structures, a narrowing of curriculum that excludes both standard civic education coursework and ultimately looming dangers of a “citizenless democracy” unable to address the challenges of the times. The summit also addressed the need to expand access to civic learning opportunities beyond a privileged cohort of schools and students.

As a long-time advocate for improving outcomes for youth and education through service-learning, I was thrilled to have a spotlight on the need to redefine the public purpose of education and to build “both-and” solutions rather than maintain divisions within the education field. Service-learning was explicitly referenced as a “proven practice” and several specific service-learning programs were highlighted as outstanding models.

During his address, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan referenced his own experience with hands-on lessons in civics and service-learning:

This work is personal for me. My first job when I went to work for the Chicago Public Schools was to implement a service-learning requirement… I can’t tell you how many young people came to me who said ‘I hated this, I didn’t want to do it.’ They ended up doing 500, 700, 1000 hours of service because they had the opportunity, they had never had that exposure. We have this tremendous imbalance. All young people have an appetite. They are committed; they want to be engaged. Somehow systemically at the elementary level, the middle school level, the high school level, and the university level we’ve walked away from providing those opportunities.

More broadly, it is clear that the language and motivation behind civic learning is largely shared by service-learning. For example, a call for developing civic action closely parallels the “learning-and-action” process of service-learning. The outcomes sought for young people from civic learning are comprehensive, and service-learning has been documented to improve the very same areas, including specific knowledge and skills, feelings of efficacy and belonging, development of moral character, and the ability to effectively interact and problem-solve in increasingly diverse communities.

When the Department of Education described its plan of action to make civic learning a priority, I saw several opportunities to incorporate expertise from the service-learning field into this effort.

• First, the Department is open to including broader indicators of student civic learning in annual assessments like the NAEP. Assessing quality service-learning is not straight-forward, but the NAEP could include indicators from the K-12 Service-Learning Standards for Quality Practice to better capture and assess the use of such pedagogies.
• Second, the Department is encouraging further rigorous research in civic learning and democratic engagement. While the K-12 service-learning field has many strong program evaluations and promising research results, further resources are needed for the most rigorous and longitudinal research that could articulate the links between service-learning, school achievement, and success, especially with the recent and premature end to Learn and Serve America’s longitudinal study.
• Third, the Department supports a new competitive program in the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) that takes advantage of engaged teaching and learning linked to real-world issues. Should this be included in a Congressional reauthorization of ESEA, this could be another opportunity to fund quality service-learning in schools.

While K-12 education was addressed, several of the reports and presentations focused much more exclusively on higher education as the place to prepare students for participation in democracy, due in part because the summit and the Crucible Moment report stemmed from the higher education offices within the Department. Higher education is a valuable setting for civic learning, but there is a huge opportunity to recognize the valuable contributions of our nation’s youngest students. A serious concern, especially when addressing the need to engage all youth in civic learning, is that reforms limited to higher education will not provide opportunities to those students least often identified as active contributors. Unfortunately, post-secondary education is simply not yet a reality for far too many young people.

Overall, the concept and definition of civic learning, the outcomes it seeks to achieve, and noted strategies as described at the summit are strongly aligned with service-learning. Ultimately, both envision major change in how students learn, how and why educators teach, and the important connection between school and community.

Today we have more than 20 years of research, compelling stories, standards, and program development in the service-learning field. Service-learning is a strategy that works across P-20 education and can help bridge barriers between K-12 and higher education. It’s time to focus on expanding what works, especially when the strategy can improve outcomes for youth, schools, communities, and our democracy. As we advance service-learning as a strategy for civic learning, we can achieve academic outcomes, engage all young people as problem solvers, and improve the civic fabric of our society. As Secretary Duncan said, we can’t continue to “walk away” from providing opportunities for young people to engage in service-learning at every level of their education.