Wisconsin Lawmakers Agree on Greater Need for Civics Education; Divided on if New Bill is Best Bath Forward

Saturday, January 20th, 2024 -- 10:01 AM

(Robert D’Andrea, Wisconsin Public Radio) Wisconsin legislators from both parties agree there is a greater need for civics education but are divided about whether a new bill would be the best path forward. 

According to Robert D'Andrea with the Wisconsin Public Radio, the bill would require the state Department of Public Instruction to develop a civics education curriculum for kindergarten through high school that emphasizes patriotism and contrasts the U.S. system of government with “communism, socialism, and totalitarianism.”

It would also revise the credits needed to earn a high school diploma. Currently, Wisconsin students must have three credits of social studies. The bill would carve out a half credit of that specifically for civics instruction.

State Rep. Amanda Nedweski, R-Pleasant Prairie, said data from the Annenberg Public Policy Center’s annual Civics Knowledge Survey illustrates the need for civics education.

“Only 5 percent of adults surveyed knew their rights under the First Amendment. Only one in 10 surveyed knew that the First Amendment includes the right to petition the government,” Nedweski testified at a hearing Wednesday.

“The survey results indicated that 34 percent of participants did not know the three branches of government. One in six didn’t even know one of the three branches,” Nedweski continued.

While Democrats on the Assembly’s education committee agreed with the scope of the problem, they expressed skepticism that this bill is the solution. Democrats questioned whether the bill duplicates what is currently being taught and called the bill “an unfunded mandate.”

“I absolutely agree with you,” said Rep. Kristina Shelton, D-Green Bay. “But it seems to me that where we currently (are), the requirements are within social studies, that already includes state and local government, and that civics is embedded in social studies.”

The legislation closely resembles a Florida bill passed in 2021. It emphasizes the nation’s founding documents and includes a directive to curate oral histories that “provide portraits in patriotism” from diverse individuals, including “first-person accounts of victims of other nations’ governing philosophies who are able to compare those philosophies with those of the United States.”

Under the Wisconsin bill, the proposed civics education curriculum should include knowledge of other nations’ governing philosophies, “including communism, socialism, and totalitarianism, and an understanding of how those philosophies compare with the philosophy and principles of freedom and representative democracy essential to the founding principles of the United States.”

Nick Schweitzer of the Wisconsin Civic Learning Coalition testified in favor of the bill with some hesitancy. “Most of it is straightforward and positive, but I do have a couple of reservations about that,” Schweitzer said.

“Specifically, some subtle messages contained within. First, language in the prescribed curricula such as patriotism, freedom, the benefits of liberty that touts our American exceptionalism.”

Feel free to contact us with questions and/or comments.