Will a civics test make students better citizens?
Kentucky School Advocate
September 2018
By Madelynn Coldiron
Staff writer
When Greenup County High School tried out the state’s newly required civics test last school year, the result was the addition of a mandatory sophomore-level course in American government.
“We started having conversations about what the test looked like, and when was the last time kids looked at these topics and it dawned on everyone that it had been since seventh grade,” Principal Jason Smith said.
The school gave the test last year to 10th- and 11th-graders, all of whom eventually passed. The social studies teachers coordinated that first effort, he said. “They took a look at their curriculum maps and built some lessons into their units of study in order to prepare the kids,” he said. “They developed a very good system.”
The state law, passed in 2017, requires students to pass a civics test to graduate with a regular diploma; it took effect July 1 this year. The test mandates that local school boards “prepare or approve” an exam that is based on 100 questions from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services test. Students must score at least 60 percent to pass and can take it as many times as needed to get a passing score.
It is a local decision about when to test high school students and how to prepare them, said Lauren Gallicchio, social studies consultant for the Kentucky Department of Education.
“Our guidance is whatever best meets the needs of their students,” she said, “because there’s nothing in the law that says when the test has to be given, aside from the fact that it’s a high school level course. They can take the questions and spread them out through multiple units throughout the course of a year or they can take the questions and arrange them over multiple years of study or they can do them all at once.”
KDE has prepared a manual that aligns the questions with current standards and when they are taught.
“So, by the time the students reach high school, they should already have had exposure to the information in those questions because the standards from primary school through eighth grade have already covered that,” Gallicchio said. “They will get the majority of content before they get to high school.”
Ryan New, president of the Kentucky Council for the Social Studies, said his understanding is that most high school teachers are giving the civics test and preparing students within one existing class, even though the test itself has sections covering content areas ranging from U.S. history to geography and civics.
“I don’t know of anyone who is doing this piecemeal,” said New, who is instructional lead for social studies for Jefferson County Schools after having taught social studies classes at Boyle County High School.
Different views
New’s organization did not support the legislation that established the requirement. He said the test is basic, multiple choice – which allows students to guess – and “was never designed to be given in the way that it’s given. It doesn’t take into consideration the curricular needs of students. … It doesn’t align to any of our standards.”
New and his students at Boyle County High developed an alternative to the citizenship test two years ago. The pilot citizenship unit focused on what makes a good citizen and included not only academic work and research, but action of some kind in the community, school, state or nation.
“That, to me, speaks much more volumes than a 100-point test that was designed for naturalized citizens,” he said. The fact that students worked together on the unit illustrated democracy more than a multiple-choice test, which “is antithetical to what we’re trying to accomplish in the classroom,” he added.
Gallicchio thinks most schools will have students take the civics test online through a web-based platform set up by KDE and the University of Kentucky. This also is flexible, however, and schools may choose to use paper-and-pencil tests. Local boards also decide how to record the results.
The Greenup County High School students used the online option, said Smith, who is a former social studies teacher. With last year’s 10th- and 11th-graders already tested, teachers this year will focus on the ninth- and 10th graders, he said.
“I think the consensus among my social studies department is that we very much thought it was a good thing,” Smith said. “These kids are going to graduate and a lot of them actually turn 18 their senior year. It gives us an opportunity to make sure they are proficient in civics education. They’re going to grow up and at some point, they’re going to be voting citizens.”
While local school districts have flexibility in administering the civics test, there are some parameters to keep in mind. Schools must follow any requirements and accommodations in a student’s individualized education program or Section 504 plan. And students who have already passed a similar test based on the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services exam within the past five years do not have to take it again.