New civics course to start in middle schools

Katie Tammen
The Destin Log
Feb 14, 2011

Florida middle school students will soon have to take a civics course and then pass a standardized test about what they’ve learned before they can go on to high school.

The new requirements were passed last year by the Florida Legislature as part of the Next Generation Sunshine State Standards.

“There was a feeling that kids didn’t know enough about their government and their nation and from whence it came,” said Steve McLaughlin, who is the curriculum specialist for Okaloosa County schools.

The Justice Sandra Day O’Connor Civics Education Act, as it is called, requires that all middle school students take either a semester or yearlong course in civics beginning in the 2012-2013 school year.

The next year, all middle school students will take the class and then take a state exam on the material. Their score will account for 30 percent of their final grade in the class.

By the 2014-2015 school year, all students must take the class and pass the standardized test in order to enter ninth grade.

Middle school students currently have civics intermixed with their social studies classes. The new course will delve deeper into the issues surrounding government than classes are now, McLaughlin said.

Students will be taught using 40 benchmarks that cover a variety of issues from government origin to political theory to citizen responsibility.

For example, one of the benchmarks asks students to consider rule of law’s impact on the creation of American government and legal systems, while another asks the students to conduct a mock election and then analyze its impact.

“It’s a lot of burden on middle school kids, (but) do I think they can rise to the occasion?” McLaughlin said. “I do.”

The new course is still in its early stages, and the state is currently working to create the standardized test. Under the legislation, a test run of the exam will be held during the 2012-2013 school year.

When completed, the civics exam will be the first end-of-course exam written by the state for any middle school course, McLaughlin said.

The schools will begin purchasing textbooks for the new course soon and the prices of the books are between $15 and $40, McLaughlin said.

A House of Representatives analysis of the new requirements estimated it would cost the state between $2.8 and $3.3 million to implement the standards from 2010 to 2014 and then an additional $1.5 million every year after that to maintain.