Current Projects
New Civics Course for Boston Public Schools
In 2008, the Civic Ed Project was hired by the Boston Public Schools to help design a new high school civics course for the district. the development of a new and innovative high school civics course for the City of Boston. From summer 2008 to Spring 2009, Project Director Roy L. Karp worked with James Liou and Robert Chisolm of the BPS and youth from the Hyde Square Task Force to create a course curriculum that focused heavily on youth civic engagement and organizing. The course is currently being piloted by four teachers at English High School and Madison Park Technical Vocational High School. BPS is planning to roll out the course at new high schools in Fall 2009.The course is the result of the "Campaign for Civics" a youth led effort to offer high school students in Boston a civics course that prepares them "to be politically aware, involved, and engaged in bettereing our society." Boston has not required its high school students to take civics since the 1970s. The campaign was launched in 2003 by youth at the Hyde Square Task Force who were inspired by an editorial written by HSTF youth leader Maria Padilla that was published in the Boston Globe.
In the spring of 2007, Youth Community Organizers ("YCOs") from HSTF brought this issue before the Boston City Council by drafting the first youth-written hearing order in the city’s history. The hearing, held in fall 2007, explored the possibility of adding civics as a required class in all public high schools in Boston. Civic Ed Project Director, Roy Karp, spoke in favor of the proposal, citing the lack of courses in civics and government in Boston compared with nearby suburban school districts, such as Newton, Brookline, and Concord-Carlisle.
HSTF youth subsequently met with the BPS Superintendant who agreed to pilot a new civics course at two high schools during the 2008-09 school year and held out the possibility of rolling out the course citywide the following school year.