Civic Assessment
How do I assess my students’ civic learning?
Major reforms like the Common Core State Standards and the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework highlight the need for new assessments that can speak to the authentic tasks that are often at the heart of high quality civic education. While those educating for democracy frequently engage their students in work that includes action projects, presenting about civic issues, and writing about controversial topics, it can be challenging to find systematic methods for assessing this work. Fortunately, innovative organizations, districts, and states have begun developing some methods. The materials on this page describe a variety of ways educators can assess students’ civic learning.
Graduate Capstone Projects
Before graduating, students from Oakland Unified School District complete a capstone project where they can investigate a social issue that’s important to them. Learn more about how teachers assess students’ learning through the various components of the project by reading Young Whan Choi’s blog post.
Explore four rubrics developed by Oakland teachers to guide assessment efforts:
For examples of student work, visit the Civic Investigation & Research page.
Civic Online Reasoning
The Stanford History Education Group (SHEG) developed a series of short assessments of civic online reasoning — the ability to effectively search for and evaluate social and political information online — that can help students learn questions and strategies for evaluating online information. You can use these assessments in a range of ways including as a lesson hook, as content for modeling, as fodder for group practice, or even as an exit slip. Read SHEG’s blog post “4 Tips for Assessing Digital Literacy in Your Classroom” and explore a range of assessments and lesson ideas on their Civic Online Reasoning website.
For more on this topic, read SHEG’s article “Why We Need a New Approach to Teaching Digital Literacy.”
Assessing Civic Writing
The National Writing Project (NWP) developed a rubric called the Civically Engaged Writing Analysis Continuum to guide teachers in their instruction and evaluation of civic writing. To learn more about supporting your students to write as a form of civic debate, dialogue, and engagement, read the NWP’s blog post “Engaging Youth in Civic Action Through Writing."
Supporting Students in Developing Persuasive Policy Arguments
For ideas about how to assess your students’ ability to develop and present a persuasive and evidence-based policy argument at the culmination of a civic inquiry project, read “Supporting Students in Developing Persuasive Policy Arguments” by the Measures of Youth Policy Arguments (MYPA) research team. The MYPA rubric was designed to provide educators with formative and summative support in assessing six core civic competencies: problem identification, research methods, policy proposal, collaboration, presentation and delivery, and response to questions.
For more information about the rubric, video examples, and curricular resources, visit the MYPA research team’s website: www.transformativestudentvoice.net.
State Level Civic Assessments
Washington State developed a set of civics assessments that target skills and knowledge necessary for engaged, informed citizenship through multi-stepped tasks or projects aligned to state standards. Alongside a required civics course in high school, the civic assessments are required at the elementary, middle school, and high school levels. Explore these assessments, scoring guides, and other resources on the Office of Superintendent & Public Instruction website.
To learn more about what other states are doing to integrate civic learning, you can access a range of policy resources, examples, and models at CivXNow.
District Level Civic Assessments
A number of school districts are developing innovative ways to assess students’ civic learning opportunities in order to identify high-quality practices and to expand both equity and access to these opportunities. For example, the Leveraging Equity & Access in Democracy Education (LEADE) Initiative partners with the following school districts:
LEADE partners with key stakeholders to identify civic learning priorities, develop tools to collect data on equity and access, contribute to public deliberation and strategic planning, support professional development efforts, and aid in district reform efforts that promote democratic education. To learn more about their use of evidence-based tools and the project more generally, click here.
Resources & Background Info
2018 NAEP Report Card: Civics (National Assessment of Educational Progress)
Can Assessment Improve Learning? Thoughts on the C3 Framework (by Bruce VanSledright, National Council for the Social Studies)
Why Civics is About More Than Citizenship (by Alia Wong, The Atlantic)
Why are We Teaching Democracy Like a Game Show? (by Joseph Kahne, Education Week)
Using Performance Assessments to Support Student Learning: How District Initiatives Can Make a Difference (Learning Policy Institute)