Civics Classes: How Well Rhode Island Teaches The Constitution

PROVIDENCE, RI — At least a year of high school civics education gave Americans a better grasp of a political cycle that saw a president impeached twice, false claims of a stolen election and the U.S. Capitol insurrection, the annual Annenberg Constitution Day Civics Survey shows.

Forty-two states and the District of Columbia require at least one year of high school civics education, according to AmericanProgress.org, which compiled an inventory of what classes were required in each state in 2019, the latest year for which an analysis is available.

About a dozen of those states require a civics education experience, such as attending local government meetings or completing a service learning project.

As of 2019, Rhode Island did not have a civics education law. Things changed this July, when Gov. Dan McKee signed a law requiring that all high school students in Rhode Island show proficiency in civics education before graduation.

Read more on states’ civics education requirements from AmericanProgress.org.

This year, 56 percent of U.S. adults surveyed in the Annenberg Constitution Day Civics Survey correctly identified the three branches of government, compared with only 33 percent 15 years ago. The survey is conducted annually by the University of Pennsylvania-based Annenberg Public Policy Center, and is released just ahead of Constitution Day on Friday.

This year, the survey showed nearly three-fourths (74 percent, up from 48 percent in 2017) of respondents could name free speech as one of their First Amendment rights; however, 61 percent of them incorrectly said Facebook is required to permit all Americans to express themselves freely on the platform.

“Higher proportions of the public have a foundational awareness of the three branches and the protections in the First Amendment,” Annenberg Center director Kathleen Hall Jamieson said in a news release.

“But this knowledge appears to have been purchased at a real cost,” she said. “It was a contentious year in which the branches of government were stress-tested.”

The survey revealed Americans remain evenly divided on what was at stake in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

Forty-nine percent agreed it was accurate to say the rioters were exercising their free speech rights and that their arrests violated the Constitution. An equal number said the opposite. Those who believed the rioters’ rights were violated included:

• 53 percent who identify as conservatives.
• 51 percent who identify as moderates.
• 42 percent who identify as liberals.

“It is a sad commentary on the public’s civic literacy that half of the public considers an effort to disrupt the certification of an election an exercise of a First Amendment right,” Jamieson said in the release.

The respondents who had taken high school civics class tended to fall on the side of those who said the rioters weren’t protected by the First Amendment. In general, those people understood:

• Their First Amendment rights, and that not all speech on Facebook is protected.
• The roles of the three branches of government.
• The terms of office of U.S. senators and representatives.
• The meaning of a 5-4 Supreme Court decision and that the court has the final say on the constitutionality of presidential action.

Nearly 6 in 10, or 59 percent, of respondents said they’d taken a high school civics class focusing on the Constitution or judicial system, about the same as in previous Annenberg Constitution Day surveys. Nearly half — 48 percent — had taken a college course focusing on the U.S. government and the Constitution. That was up 10 points from 2019 and prior years of the survey, which showed 38 percent had taken such a class.

After the Capitol riot, several states started looking at how well they’re preparing students to participate in the nation’s democracy.

For example, a measure that Delaware Gov. John Carney signed into law earlier this year helps students in sixth through 12th grades to do just that. It gives them one excused absence per school year to participate in a civic activity — whether by attending a government meeting, visiting their state’s Capitol or going to a political rally.

Sussex Academy of Arts student Samantha Oliver said during a Delaware House panel hearing last spring that she and her peers “will be the ones to lead the charge of our country for the years to come,” The Associated Press reported.

“It is a necessity that we, the next generation, learn how to use our voices for good, for change, effectively and earnestly,” Oliver said.

Delaware is the only state in the country to give its students a day off from school to wade into democracy.

“Young people who are involved in their communities oftentimes turn into adults who are engaged in their communities,” Democratic state Rep. Eric Morrison, the bill’s sponsor, told the Pew Charitable Trust’s public policy reporting arm, Stateline. “This encourages people to learn at a young age how to get involved in the right ways.”

This year, legislators in 34 states debated 88 bills that would require high school students to take more civics education. Some of those measures addressed traditional education, while others — such as the one in Delaware — looked at civic activities outside the classroom setting.

“We need to get kids more involved in their local government and understand that it affects them,” Indiana state Rep. Tony Cook told Stateline. Cook is a Republican who introduced bipartisan legislation, now signed by the governor, requiring middle school and high school civics classes.

“The time is now,” Cook said. “It’s been overdue.”

Constitution Day commemorates the day in 1787 when 39 delegates to the Constitutional Convention signed the nation’s founding document in Philadelphia.

More Resources

• Annenberg Classroom: free resources for teaching the Constitution.
• Civics Renewal Network: a coalition of more than 35 nonpartisan, nonprofit organizations seeking to raise the visibility of civics education by providing free, high-quality resources for teachers, including the
• Constitution Day Toolkit for teachers, and an Annenberg Classroom film on the Second Amendment, one in a series of award-winning videos.