76% of civics teachers self-censor over fears of controversy
Fear of controversy leads many civics teachers to self-censor, leaving students without exposure to open political dialogue.
Competing models like iCivics and "Woke Kindergarten" highlight the deep divide over how America should teach its founding principles.
A new policy briefing from the Sandra Day O’Connor Institute warns one of the greatest challenges to modern civic education is fear of controversy.
Teachers increasingly avoid core lessons on America’s government and history out of concern that any discussion could spark political backlash. Most civics teachers report receiving little to no training in how to navigate sensitive topics, while a majority describe their political education guidelines as “vague or unclear.” The result is widespread self-censorship and a climate of caution that deprives students of the debate and discussion necessary to understand democracy.
The Sandra Day O’Connor Institute points to statistics that contextualize the growing disparity in the purpose of civics education. A RAND survey of high school civics teachers found that by 2019, fewer than one-third viewed basic factual knowledge as essential, such as the names of the 50 states, a decline from 2010. The share who considered understanding government structure and constitutional principles essential also dropped, falling from nearly two-thirds to just over half in the same period.
Campus Reform has reported for years on the correlation between proper civics education and the opportunity for ideological indoctrination. We’ve also previously reported how fear of conflict pushes students to self-censor as well, with many pretending to hold progressive views to satisfy professors and peers.
In 2022, Nicholas Giordano, a Higher Education Fellow at Campus Reform, wrote about the basic civics exam he administers to incoming students in his college course. The majority of students failed the exam which asks basic questions such as: how many Supreme Court justices are there? When given a copy of Russia’s constitution to analyze, many students thought it was the American constitution.
In 2024, Giordano joined Real America’s Voice to discuss the current state of civics education. “They don’t know the basic fundamentals,” Giordano, a community college professor, said of his new students. “They have no idea what federalism is; they don’t know that we’re a republic; they are unaware of who is the current Speaker of the House; they don’t even know who their senators are.”
[RELATED: PROF. GIORDANO: I found real intellectual diversity far away from elite colleges]
The Sandra Day O’Connor Institute briefing stresses that the future of civics education hinges on defining a shared vision for civics that can guide respectful debate across political divides. Without a shared vision for civics, it notes, many educators hesitate to address contentious topics at all—an issue echoed in schools grappling with parent and community pushback.
Jennifer Connolly, principal at Preston High School in the Bronx, spoke of the need to train teachers in civil dialogue after parents on both sides of the political spectrum complained about the school hosting local political candidates ahead of the 2024 election.
Connolly said the dialogue training focused on setting standards for civil discourse, attempting to give students the tools they needed to speak respectfully and not to “villainize” those who think differently than them.
But instead of engaging in dynamic discussions that foster healthy debate between students with different political views, Connolly said that many teachers prefer a “formula” for handling conversations. 27 percent of principals interviewed by Education Week said that “teacher training” was a “challenging obstacle” to civics education.
So what resources do exist to support teachers in facilitating difficult conversations between students that don’t squash political diversity?
iCivics, initially founded by Sandra Day O’Connor as Our Courts, is a nonprofit platform that offers free civics education through lesson plans, teacher guides, and online games simulating roles in government. It also supports teachers and schools with training and partnerships so the curriculum can be used either fully or as supplemental material.
In July, Shari Conditt, a teacher of over 25 years, discussed the difficulty in teaching civics around national election cycles. She cited iCivics as a fundamental tool in helping her foster diverse intellectual discourse around America’s political system.
“iCivics allows me the opportunity and materials to live in a nonpartisan place. There’s nothing about them that opens the door to a political agenda or to policy issues, and they really focus on the things that I, and we, want fidelity to: sustaining our democracy.”
Conditt cites her students’ ability to talk to those who think differently from them as a key driver in their political engagement within their communities. Some of her students have been moved to become involved with municipal politics.
[RELATED: Prof. Giordano on the nascent revival of civics education: WATCH]
By contrast, from 2022-2024, a bay area school spent $250,000 of federal funds to support an organization called “Woke Kindergarten.” It trained elementary school teachers in abolitionist education and sought to “disrupt whiteness” while mixing in anti-police, anti-capitalism, and anti-Israel messages.
After two years with “Woke Kindergarten,” student test scores were worse. The percentage of students who could read proficiently dropped from 16 to 12 percent. Students who had mathematical proficiency dropped from 8 to less than 4 percent.
Akiea ‘Ki’ Gross, the leader of the “Woke Kindergarten” program, wants to see to the destruction of both America and Israel, according to her social media posts. Gross says her program will “heal” and “liberate” students. Gross also says the United States has “no right to exist” and yearns for a world free of the U.S. empire. “We have been trying to end y’all,” Gross said in an Instagram post.
During the Inauguration, Gross posted a list titled “7 Things Kids Can Do Besides the Inauguration [sic].” Suggestions include staring into space, reading a book “before they’re gone,” spinning in circles, and throwing tomatoes at the TV.
In a similar debate about the future of civics education, Rachel Perrera, a chair in governance studies at the Brown Center on Education Policy, connected President Trump’s cuts to the Department of Education to the current crisis in civic education.
“Public education in the U.S., from K-12 to higher education, is under attack,” Perrera said. “And what’s worse, when we think about the importance of public education for democracy, is that we have under-invested in civics education and social studies for decades, leaving many young people ill-equipped to understand, contextualize, and respond to many of the crises of our democracy that we see unfolding today.”
What Perrera calls the “attack” on higher education is President Trump’s effort to set clear national standards for civic and historical instruction. His executive order calls for a unified framework that presents America’s founding. He sets a definition for the goal of American historical education.
It should be “an accurate, honest, unifying, inspiring, and ennobling characterization of America’s founding and foundational principles,” anchoring civics education in the nation’s constitutional principles rather than partisan agendas.
Responding to the order, the USC Race and Equity Center addressed their “equity-driven educators” in a briefing about the changes they could expect to ensue. Educators have to stop restricting “exposure to opposing perspectives” and cannot “reinforce a singular narrative.”
“How can we continue to teach about systemic racism and historical injustices while complying with the new regulations?” the brief asked in an FAQ section. The response: “It’s essential to find balanced approaches to discussing systemic issues, ensuring that teachings are framed in a way that emphasizes individual agency and merit, and are presented objectively to foster critical thinking without assigning collective guilt.”
If defending individual agency and encouraging political diversity is deemed an “attack” on education, as Ferrera suggests, then by implication the education system she supports must rest on enforcing uniform political opinion and cultivating a sense of victimhood.
Campus Reform has reached out to Woke Kindergarten and iCivics. This article will be updated accordingly.
