iCivics

We inspire a passion for civic learning so young people can shape the world around them and believe in our country’s future. Our three-brand system forms the framework through which we interact with our stakeholders, convey our message, and achieve maximum impact. iCivics holds the vision for a thriving U.S. democracy and comprehensive strategy. iCivics Education leads the field as the proper provider of high-quality civic education resources. CivxNow rallies multiple sectors to prioritize civic education through policy and increased funding.

Invest as the Premier Provider: iCivics has become a leading and trusted provider of civic education resources. The scale and diversity of our reach are unmatched, as is the breadth of our comprehensive library of award-winning resources. While we will maintain our founding commitment to reach every student in America, our focus will transcend the scale of our reach and the volume of our resources, including the completion of our English Language Learner initiative. We will strive to strengthen our position as the civic education provider of choice, so that every teacher has positive, transformative experiences with their students.

Catalyze a Movement: In order to govern ourselves and sustain our communities, Americans need an adequate understanding of the law and our government; skills for discussing and working together despite our disagreements; and a widespread commitment to preserving and improving our society and the rights and interests of all our people. Yet, only about one in four students reach “proficient” scores in civic education and this has shown little change since the 1970s. Our trans-partisan coalition CivxNow is poised to build on this unique period of momentum for civic education, to continue to catalyze a movement to advocate for comprehensive policies for higher-quality civic education and to engage in a narrative campaign to compel action.

Evolve for Impact: iCivics is exploring how to surround its resources with tools and services to support deeper learning in and outside the classroom, as well as to connect the learning with the local community. The new services will include everything from measures of civic learning and outcomes, to teacher practice, equity in the classroom, and youth voice. iCivics strives to develop a new civic readiness model: locally-driven, locally-adapted, and extending beyond the school. The civic mission articulated in so many schools’ mission statements must have the commitment of administrators, educators, students, families, and the broader community. We must also have independent measures of impact that reveal whether schools are graduating students who have been adequately prepared for civic engagement.

Since 2009, iCivics has become the nation’s premier non-profit civic education provider of high-quality, non-partisan, engaging, and free resources to more than 9 million students annually, in all 50 states. That equates to the majority of our nation’s middle and high school students. More recently, iCivics has become a coalition builder, driving policy to make excellent civic education a requirement across the United States which will in turn drive demand for high-quality resources and teaching.

iCivics’ first-of-its-kind digital civic library (icivics.org/teachers) includes more than 300 curricular resources, digital literacy tools, professional learning materials, and educational video games. And behind those numbers lie countless young people who now feel the weight of their civic roles and agency. Our engaging resources are proven to improve civic knowledge, skills and dispositions (vision.icivics.org/impact/)

In 2018, iCivics founded and now leads the CivxNow Coalition: a fast-growing movement of 340+ influential members calling for a civic education revival in America. Our goal is to affect systemic change to make high quality and equitable civic education a centerpiece of modern education nationwide.

In 2021, the National Endowment for Humanities tasked iCivics, along with partners at Harvard, Arizona State and Tufts Universities, to lead a coalition of 300 experts in assessing the state of, and best practices in, the teaching of American history, civics, and government in K-12 education: Educating for American Democracy: A Roadmap for Excellence in History and Civics Education for All Learners. iCivics is now building out a core curriculum based on this framework, implementing –– and scaling –– it in a range of diverse school districts, and evaluating its efficacy on both teacher instructional gains and student civic outcomes.