Civic education in public schools faces major challenges. Under No Child Left Behind, many schools have favored teaching math and English rather than civics, which undermines one of the purposes of public schools--to educate students to be responsible and active citizens in democracy. A second challenge comes inside the classroom: engaging the…

Religion plays an important role in social studies content and is difficult to ignore, especially because of current world events. In our global society, it is more important than ever to know about and understand the religious beliefs of others. The social studies curriculum is infused with religion, but teachers circumvent the issue, mistakenly…