NH Delegation Attends The Fourth Annual Congressional Conference on Civic Education, Washington, D.C.

A delegation from New Hampshire joined delegations from each state and the District of Columbia for the Fourth Congressional Conference on Civic Education, November 18 through 20, 2006, in Washington, DC. The Conference brought together key policymakers and educators from each state for a discussion of the current low levels of civic engagement in the United States and the critical role civic education plays in our schools in increasing civic involvement.

The New Hampshire delegation included The Honorable Iris Estabrook, State Senator; The Honorable Carolyn Gargasz, State Representative; Mary Heath, Deputy Commissioner of the NH Department of Education; Debby Scire, NHACE chair and Executive Director of Campus Compact NH; and Julie Yerkes, Civic Education Programs Manager at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics; and was led by Mica Stark, NHACE vice chair and Managing Director of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics, who coordinates the delegation and an in-state effort to strengthen civic education in New Hampshire schools. NHACE convened the New Hampshire delegation to attend the Fourth Annual Congressional Conference on Civic Education.

This is the fourth in a series of five Congressional Conferences designed to bring attention to the civic mission of our nation’s schools. The Conference is hosted by the leadership of the United States Congress and sponsored by the Alliance for Representative Democracy, an initiative of the Trust for Representative Democracy at the National Conference of State Legislatures, the Center for Civic Education, and the Center on Congress at Indiana University.

Delegates to the Conference heard from a number of prominent speakers including the Honorable Marjorie O. Rendell, Judge, Third Circuit, U.S. Court of Appeals and First Lady of Pennsylvania; former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Tom Foley; former Minority Leader of the House Bob Michel; former Congressman and 9-11 Commission Co-Chairman Lee Hamilton; Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education, Ray Simon; and Brendan Welburn, Executive Director, National Association of State Boards of Education.

The New Hampshire delegation approved the conference Declaration as follows:

Delegates to the First Annual Congressional Conference ACKNOWLEDGED:

• The urgent need to address the low level of civic engagement in America;
• That civic engagement is essential to maintaining our representative democracy;
• That schools are essential to civic engagement to prepare students for the obligations and responsibilities of citizenship; and
• That civic education should not be incidental to the schooling of American youth but a central purpose of education essential to the well being of representative democracy.

And RESOLVED to take action to reestablish the historic civic mission of schools.

IN FURTHERANCE of this resolution, the state delegations have taken action to improve civic learning and practice since the First Congressional Conference over the past three years, achieving the following results:

• Each state has established an active and inclusive coalition;
• 23 states convened statewide summits and other formal events;
• 25 states conducted assessments of the status of civic education; and
• Legislators from 34 states have introduced 69 pieces of legislation to strengthen civic education in the schools with 24 of these measures having passed.

The delegates to this Fourth Annual Congressional Conference on Civic Education intend to build on these successes and ACKNOWLEDGE the importance of the following policy areas to improve civic education:

Clear and challenging academic standards that are concerned with the knowledge students should acquire and the skills necessary for active civic participation;

Adequate civic education curricular requirements to ensure that civic education is taught systematically kindergarten through grade 12; and

High quality professional development programs to enable teachers to deliver quality classroom instruction to their students.

THEREFORE, we the delegates to the Fourth Congressional Conference on Civic Education hereby REAFFIRM the principles of the Statement adopted at the First Congressional Conference and RESOLVE to take action within our states to restore the civic mission of our schools.

Adopted this 20th day of November 2006 in Washington, D.C.