Bill requiring high school civics passes out of House
OLYMPIA — A bill that would require standalone civics education in Washington high schools passed through the House floor late last week, part of a larger effort to spur the state’s youth to get involved with their political systems.
The bill’s primary sponsor, Rep. Laurie Dolan, D-Olympia, called it necessary to prepare minors to vote and engage their political representatives.
“We can sponsor all the best voting bills in the world, but if we don’t embed in our young people the responsibility to actually go vote and the reasons to vote, creating access to ballots doesn’t do us any good,” Dolan said.
Natalie Stevens, who volunteers with Olympia Indivisible, a grassroots organizations of politically-concerned citizens, came to the capitol early January to testify in support of the proposal. Stevens agreed with Dolan’s assessment that education could make the difference in young voters.
“The biggest problem we have in governance is apathy,” Stevens said. “I think that reflects the fact that civics education has fallen off in the last 30 years.”
The proposed legislation would require half a high school credit of civics, potentially growing to a full credit as state curricula evolve in the future. The bill aims to increase the number of teachers capable of teaching civics and the number of students with a basic understanding of how federal, state and local governments work.
New civics coursework would also be measured in its ability to educate students “from every demographic and socioeconomic group” about their rights and responsibilities as citizens, as well as how to exercise them.
The bill received broad bipartisan support and sponsorship. Rep. John Lovick, D-Mill Creek, was one of many cosponsors of the bill.
“People will call you thinking you are their congressman, thinking you can handle things on a national level because they just don’t understand our representative democracy and what (legislators) do,” said Lovick. “We should teach kids about civics and how to engage with that representative democracy.”
A high school teacher for decades, Rep. Matt Manweller, R-Ellensburg, also cosponsored the bill.
“I was shocked that when I came to Washington you can graduate without having to take a class in American government or civics,” Manweller said. “To expect people to be good citizens and know how to vote and understand their government but not give them a class seems counterintuitive.”
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