CIVICS, FRONT AND CENTER
Boston Globe "Chalkboard" Column
Sunday, January 6, 2002
by Laura Pappano

      Timothy Kaldas doesn't worry about MCAS - personally, that is. He passed and will graduate from Reading Memorial High School this spring. But Kaldas believes it's his duty to oppose the high-stakes test as a graduation requirement. ''When I saw the results and saw what towns [low scores] were coming from, it was so clear to me that students were being punished for being poor,'' he said.

      Kaldas is on the State Student Advisory Council, which advises the state Board of Education, and is a member of the Student Coalition for Alternatives to MCAS, a student member of Reading's School Committee, and also belongs to Amnesty International. ''Life isn't just all about you,'' said Kaldas, 17, who was inspired by studying civil disobedience and Lawrence Kohlberg's theory of moral development. ''Helping other people is a very important thing.'' And these days, it just might be cool to care.

      Community service requirements have been a staple at most high schools since the mid-1990s. But what began as an effort to give students compassion for and a connection to elders, younger people, and others different from themselves has become a good way to round out a college application.

      Sure, some kids are still looking for extracurricular credit, but others really want to make a difference.

      Shrewsbury High School principal Daniel Gutekanst said the school this year began requiring students to take a 60-day civics course. The fallout from the terrorist attacks has encouraged students to seek real change, he said.
      Some students, for example, are working on legislation to lower the minimum age for donating blood. ''They are taking it to the next level,'' said Gutekanst. ''They are asking, `What is our government's response? What is our community's response to this issue?'''

      Credit the 2000 presidential election with demonstrating the value of a single vote. Here in Massachusetts, factor in student opposition to MCAS testing and then consider the sobering effects of Sept. 11, and there is reason for students to feel there are more pressing things to do than hang out at the mall.

      ''The election and 9/11 have brought new consciousness, a new interest to the field of civics and government,'' said Chuck Quigley, executive director of the Center for Civic Education, in Calabasas, Calif., a 30-year-old nonprofit that promotes K-12 civics education. At Quabbin Regional Middle School in Barre, seventh- and eighth-graders are pressing for improvements along a 11/2-mile stretch of South Street that leads from their school to downtown.

      There is no shoulder or sidewalk on the busy road, leaving students and residents little protection from vehicles, said seventh-grade social studies teacher Erin Stevens, a project adviser.

      The ''Safety on South Street'' project won second place last summer in a national competition sponsored by the Center for Civic Education.  And, despite cost concerns raised by town officials, students continue to press their agenda, Stevens said.

      The value of involving students in public issues is obvious: They  become more involved citizens.

      One study tracking 15 years of graduates of the ''We the People'' program created by the Center for Civic Education showed that 82 percent voted in the last presidential election, significantly higher than the 51 percent of all registered voters.
     

So, is civics making a comeback?

      It's too soon to say, but Diane Palmer, Massachusetts coordinator for the Center for Civic Education programs, reports more interest among teachers.

      Perhaps more critically, Palmer, a member of the panel revising the state's history and social studies frameworks, said that post Sept. 11, she notices a lot of pressure on board members to make sure that civics and government are strong pieces of the new frameworks.

      For teachers, lessons echoed in the news lend a powerful relevance to classroom discussion. Tom Flaherty, who teaches 11th- and 12th-grade government, American history, and current events at Chatham High School, said it has become difficult to present disparate views. ''I try to bring up both sides of an issue and let them arrive at some decision, but sometimes their emotions take over,'' he said.

      Roger Desrosiers, 11th- and 12th-grade US history and government teacher at Millbury Memorial Junior-Senior High School, said students are politically aware.

      ''They realize that through our system they can have a role - that if they choose, they can make a difference,'' he said.

      At a meeting last month of the State Student Advisory Council in Malden, some 60 student delegates made a key vote unanimous: The students will ally themselves with the Alliance for High Standards, Not High Stakes, an organization of anti-MCAS groups.

     As the meeting drew to a close, tables were strewn with thick binders and empty Starbucks and Minute Maid containers. One student sported a name tag: ''He who must not be named'' - a reference to a ''Harry Potter'' character.

      But even as students hang on to humor, they see a serious role for themselves. They want to have a strong public voice on MCAS. So members of the legislative committee talked strategy with a lawyer. The students want to file a bill - again - to eliminate MCAS as a graduation requirement.

      It's a lost cause, said the lawyer. ''We know it won't pass,'' acknowledged James Madden, 18, a Randolph High School senior and chair of the State Student Advisory Council. ''But it's an effort that needs to be made.''