The Center for Civic Education’s mission is to promote and enlightened a responsible citizenry that is committed to democratic principles and actively engaged in the practice of democracy in the United States and in the United States and other countries. The Center develops and implements programs in civic education for public and private schools at elementary and secondary levels, cooperating with educators and scholars in the social sciences, humanities, and the law. The Center offers curricular materials, leadership training, teachers education, and research and evaluation in civic education. The principal goals of the Center’s programs are to help students develop (1) an increased understanding of the institutions of American constitutional democracy and the fundamental principles and values upon which they are founded, (2) the skills necessary to participate as effective and responsible citizens, and (3) the willingness to use democratic procedures for making decisions and managing conflict.
We the People: Project Citizen, administered at the middle school level, promotes competent and responsible participation in state and local governments. It actively engages young people in learning how to monitor and influence public
policy, as a project, young people work together to create a portfolio related to public policy issue that they have researched and documented. Classes may enter their portfolios in a local competition with other classes. Winners advance to annual state and national competitions. Project Citizen is administered nationally by the Center in cooperation with the National Conference of State Legislatures, a bipartisan organization dedicated to serving the lawmakers and staffs of the nation’s 50 states and its commonwealths and territories.
Civic Education website: http://www.civiced.org
For further information on Project Citizen at the Elementary School Level contact Karen Retford at kretford2@empire.12.ca.us or (209) 521-2970.