Oakland Unified, in partnership with the Civic Engagement Research Group (CERG) at UC Riverside, implemented a district-wide digital civics initiative called Educating for Democracy in the Digital Age (EDDA) starting in 2012. The goal of EDDA is to bring high quality civic learning and digital
 media literacy learning opportunities to all OUSD high school students. The EDDA initiative has significantly expanded the opportunity structure for civic learning and engagement in OUSD. It began with 28 teachers and has grown to over 100 teachers from 12 high schools in Oakland. Signaling its commitment to this initiative, the District expanded the focus of their graduate profile from preparing all students to be “College and Career Ready” to preparing all students to be “College, Career, and Community Ready.”  

In the spring of 2017, OUSD passed a School Board Resolution committing to assessing the equity and access of the civic learning opportunities throughout the District in partnership with LEADE. Under the leadership of Young Whan Choi, the Civic Engagement Coordinator for the District, the District will draw on the results to create a five-year plan for increasing civic learning opportunities for all students.

Riverside Unified recently adopted a new “Civic Engagement” graduation standard that aims to ensure that all students “demonstrate an understanding of the attributes of a responsible and involved citizen by engaging with authentic local, regional, and global issues of concern” by the time they graduate from a Riverside Unified public school. The District will partner with LEADE in order to draw on evidence-based tools to assess this standard, with special attention to the ways in which this standard, in tandem with a district-wide approach to civic learning, can be achieved effectively and equitably.

Los Angeles Unified passed a School Board resolution making a commitment to expanding equity and access to high-quality civic learning for all students. The Board also committed to collecting data on these opportunities and outcomes in partnership with LEADE starting in the 2017-2018 school year. The District will use the results to create a five-year plan for increasing civic learning opportunities for students, with special attention to expanding civic learning opportunities of students from low-income families, English Learners, and other groups that have been underserved.

In addition, a number of key organizations — such as the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), Asian Americans Advancing Justice-LA, InnerCity Struggle, In the Public Interest, the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, UNITE-LA, and UTLA — signed a letter of support alongside the School Board resolution to show their support for the LEADE Initiative’s efforts to advance civic learning in the District. LEADE will also partner with a number of other civic and community organizations in Los Angeles who have been active in equity educational reform for almost two decades and many of these groups emphasize the importance of youth civic development.

The Civic Engagement Research Group (CERG) at the University of California, Riverside is collaborating with the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) Department of Social Science and Civic Engagement to collect and analyze civic learning items via the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research’s 5Essentials student survey in order to better understand both the degree to which civic learning opportunities are equitably distributed across the district and the impact of civic learning opportunities on students’ civic commitments and participation. In addition, CERG and CPS are developing tools for schools to conduct an in-depth assessment of civic learning across the curriculum and school community in order to reflect, plan, and move toward a deeper level of implementation of civic learning. Together these efforts will support key stakeholders throughout CPS to promote high-quality civic learning for all students.

In 2018, Washington State unanimously passed a law requiring a stand-alone high school civics class as well as establishing two demonstration projects for enhanced civic learning. The Council on Public Legal Education (CPLE) is now partnering with LEADE to promote high quality civic learning opportunities in schools in these projects. Through the Civic Learning Initiative (CLI), CPLE and LEADE are working together to assess the degree to which high quality civic learning opportunities are reaching students equitably and at scale in these two diverse school districts in WA.