A Triumph for Civic Renewal at America’s 250th

At a time when we Americans routinely worry about the health of our civic culture, the U.S. Department of Education has made a notable investment. Earlier this month, the department approved a $1.9-million grant for The American Civic Tradition at 250, a joint initiative of Texas Southern University and West Texas A&M University aimed at improving civic literacy in underserved communities.

The program is designed to reconnect teachers and students with the ideas and institutions that undergird American self-government. The timing is deliberate. With the nation approaching its 250th anniversary, the program is designed to reconnect teachers and students with the ideas and institutions that undergird American self-government—an area where national assessments show persistent weakness. According to the 2022 NAEP civics exam, only 22 percent of eighth-graders reached proficiency, with the lowest scores concentrated in precisely the communities this grant seeks to reach.

Civic literacy is not a conservative or liberal project; it is a prerequisite for democratic self-rule. For one of us, Dr. Richard A. Johnson III, the project carries personal meaning. Texas Southern University (TSU) is my alma mater, and, as a member of its board of regents, I have seen firsthand both the promise of its students and the consequences of uneven civic preparation. Through my work at the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Booker T. Washington Initiative, I have argued that education should cultivate independence, judgment, and opportunity—especially in communities too often offered lowered expectations instead of serious instruction.

The program reflects that philosophy in practice. Over two years, TSU’s Civic Engagement Lab and West Texas A&M’s Hill Institute will train 150 K-12 teachers and 100 undergraduate students through intensive seminars. Participants will study primary texts such as the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Federalist Papers, using structured discussion and debate rather than cursory survey approaches.

Later sessions address slavery, Reconstruction, civil rights, women’s suffrage, and immigration through case studies and site visits. The goal is neither to sanitize history nor to reduce it to an indictment. Instead, the curriculum emphasizes how constitutional principles created the framework for reform and expanded inclusion over time—a view famously articulated by Frederick Douglass, who described the Constitution as a “glorious liberty document.”

The final phase of the program focuses on application. Teachers and students will develop redesigned civics units, engage in local civic projects, and build skills in media literacy and public participation. The grant includes performance benchmarks, external evaluation, and open-access resources intended to extend its reach beyond the initial participants.

There is also a geographic dimension worth noting. Texas Southern University serves a largely urban, minority student population in Houston, while West Texas A&M draws from rural communities in the Panhandle. The partnership suggests that civic education can serve as common ground across regional and demographic lines, even in a polarized era.

A proposed four-course university civics sequence, included in the project’s long-term plans and inspired by the Martin Center’s model General Education Act, traces political thought from classical sources through the American Founding and into contemporary constitutional debates. Its emphasis on primary texts and civic responsibility reflects an older but durable insight: Self-government depends not only on rights but on an educated citizenry capable of exercising them.

Some critics may view initiatives like this through a partisan lens. We would argue the opposite. Civic literacy is not a conservative or liberal project; it is a prerequisite for democratic self-rule. As James Madison warned, a people who mean to govern themselves must arm themselves with knowledge. Stated differently, our students cannot be expected to defend a country they do not even understand.

As the Semiquincentennial approaches, The American Civic Tradition at 250 represents a serious attempt to meet that challenge. If successful, we pray that it will be employed as a template for other states and institutions looking to strengthen civic education where it is needed most.

Dr. Richard A. Johnson III, Ed.D., is director, Booker T. Washington Initiative, and senior fellow for urban education at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. Thomas K. Lindsay, Ph.D., is the higher-education policy director for Next Generation Texas at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.