Governor visits Novi to promote civic education
Novi News – Pam Fleming – Thursday, September 25, 2003
Institute wants students to become good citizens
Gov. Jennifer Granholm visited Novi Sept. 19 to lend her support to an international effort at improving young people's understanding of government and its workings.
Granholm was the keynote speaker at the first Celebration of Civics Engagement at the DoubleTree Hotel in Novi. State Representative Doug Hart (R-Rockford), chair of The Civics Institute, and Brian Berce, president, hosted the event.
Organizers hope that this will be an annual event benefiting civics education for students.
The goal of the Institute, a non-profit organization based in Lansing, is to build good citizens.
“Over the next decade, The Civics Institute will literally make hundreds of thousands of Michigan's young people more competent and engaged citizens,” Hart said.
Schools to be heavily involved
The Institute plans to provide students and teachers with Michigan-specific state and local government curricula.
This will include lesson plans on how to be effective citizen advocates, a State Capitol Speakers Bureau offering more than 100 classroom speakers and regular Student Legislative Updates and student surveys.
The Institute will also offer an online, student-run classroom-based news service and advocacy network and legislative opportunities for young citizens to testify on issues important to them.
An online International Youth Initiative, which includes cultural exchanges, a world student news service and a global student congress will begin in 21 nations this school year alone.
“The Civics Institute has an aggressive, technologically cutting-edge action plan to help out schools fulfill this mission,” Hart said.
“The result is that Michigan's younger generation will become concerned, responsible citizens.”
Hart, a former middle school teacher, said before he ran for political office he sensed that young people in Michigan had almost no clue as to what their state government did, how it impacted them and how they could become involved.
As a result, during his first term in office, he had more than four dozen meetings with stakeholders in public education and Lansing, brainstorming with them about possible strategies that could be used to address the perceived K-12 deficit in civic education.
In 2000, this process culminated with a Dow Foundation grant. In September 2000, Hart hired Berce as president of the Institute. During the winter of 2000 and spring 2001, Berce worked to achieve nonprofit status for the Institute.
“We want to build good citizens. We want to work to ensure that every young person in the state, upon graduation from high school and college, demonstrates that he or she is a competent, caring and engaged state, national and global citizen,” Hart said.
“We want students to not only know ho elected government works, but also to genuinely interact with it as well. We believe that the best way to learn about citizenship is to act like a citizen.
“Our goal is to create citizens who are knowledgeable and engaged, who understand their government and take ownership in the affairs of their communities,” Hart said.
Web-based programs planned
Schools and educators are the most critical aspect of the Institute's programming. “Everything we do is done through teachers in classrooms, whether it be interactive Web-based programs or units with lesson plans,” Hart said.
Currently, Hart is cultivating a Michigan/Bosnia legislative, school and healthcare exchange.
“This is a convergence of my interests in education and government,” Hart said. “It's really a group effort. We have the University of Michigan involved, the Department of Education and many other people.”
Craig Ruff, who works for Public Sector Consultants, a public policy research firm in Lansing, is on The Civics Institute board. He was also present at the event to lend his support to the project.
“These young people are going to be on watch to see if we get Social Security benefits or Medicare and how we're going to fund all the things that are so central from the government. If we don't get them involved as teenagers and in their 20s, we're in huge trouble,” Ruff said.
“We want to provide some knowledge to the adults who run this world of ours with an idea and a perspective about what young people think are society's problems,” Ruff said.
“This year, the Institute hopes to pilot a state and local government curricula in at least 50 public school districts throughout Michigan, with the goal of getting it into a total of 500 school districts within the next five or six years,” Hart said.
Government teachers will need professional inservices on how to use the curricula because it is highly sophisticated and Internet-based, according to Hart. Some of the money raised at the $250-a-plate breakfast Sept 19 will be used to fund these inservices. Ten people paid $2,500 each to attend the event.
House Civics Commission created
The Institute also recently created the Michigan House Civics Commission about seven months ago to give students a voice in the Michigan legislature. The Commission is a bipartisan group of lawmakers who enable students to present testimony on various issues that student think are important.
Since December 2002, the Commission held 14 public hearings at Michigan schools. As a result of a hearing at Forest Hills Middle School in Grand Rapids, Granholm recently signed a resolution to proclaim October as “Student Backpack Safety Month.”
Four Forest Hills eighth-grade girls who helped get the resolution passed attended the Sept 19 fundraiser and were able to meet Granholm. They also received a copy of the House Resolution.
“We like chicks in charge around here,” Granholm told the young women.
“Ten, maybe 20 years from today, hopefully, you'll come back to The Civics Institute breakfast. But, instead of sitting at a table, maybe you'll be leading it. Maybe one of you will be governor of the state of Michigan. Just don't run for another seven and a half years,” she joked.
Commission members were impressed with the amount of scientific information students provided when testifying before the Commission. Their arguments focused on a U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission study that cited this in 1999, more than 3,400 pupils between the ages of 5 and 14 sought treatment in hospital emergency rooms for injuries related to backpacks and book bags.
“The world is your oyster. It's up to you what you want to do with it,” Granholm said to the students. “There are thousands of blank pages of history waiting to be written. When you children go through Michigan public schools, what will the history books say about your contribution to the shaping of our state?” Granholm said.
“We're just here temporarily, waiting to pass the baton to you. I want you to be bold. Show some muster. It is difficult to go against the grain, it's difficult to be the first ship to cut the wake especially if you're a young person. Because you all want to see what everybody else is going, and you want to make sure you're not standing out,” she said.
“But the great leaders in history are people who were willing to show some courage and stand up and say, ‘The only way things are going to get done is not if I go with the flow.' And that is not an easy thing to do,” Granholm said.
Students from Michigan's Lake City High School also came up with an idea that created a budget line item amendment in Senate Bill 266. The amendment encourages the State Family Program Office to promote and inform private individuals, businesses and organizations on the distribution of prepaid phone cards and other services to National Guard members and military reservists serving overseas.
“This is just what the Michigan House of Representatives had in mind when we established the Civics Commission,” Hart said. “It's great to see students working hard to make a difference in state government.”
am Fleming is a staff writer for the Novi News. She can be reached at 248 349 1700, ext. 105, or by email at pfleming@ht.homecomm.net .