Category: Uncategorized

The Governor’s Statewide Youth Council Swearing-In Ceremony Last Friday, I had the incredible opportunity to speak at the Governor’s 3rd Statewide Youth Council Swearing-In Ceremony at the Massachusetts State House. Hosted by Governor Deval Patrick and facilitated by some of the most eloquent high school students I have ever encountered, the Ceremony welcomed 28 youth… Continue reading Civics Day and Student Voice

The US Department of Education has requested public comment about their strategies for promoting civic learning and engagement. Public comments are part of a much larger process for government public engagement; they then typically use these comments to inform their own work as they move towards final decisions. Generation Citizen staff in collaboration with education… Continue reading A Note to the Department of Education

Last Friday, Scott Warren and I were in Atlanta, where we were one of twenty startup “civic ventures” competing to join a new “Civic Accelerator” started by Points of Light and Village Capital. The twenty finalists spanned a wide range of missions and forms, from helping people take action based on news articles to crowdsourcing… Continue reading What’s Our “Market Failure?”

Very exciting news today – Generation Citizen has been selected to join the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation‘s portfolio. DRKF is a (highly selective) “venture philanthropy” fund that helps social entrepreneurs grow and scale their organizations. In addition to intensive advising and a DRKF board appointee, GC will also receive $300,000 over the next three years.… Continue reading GC Joins Draper Richards Kaplan

In a recent blog post, education expert Diane Ravitch quotes a reader who avers that the purpose of public education is that “the job requirements of a citizen in a democratic society are far and away more demanding than the job qualifications of a serf in a feudal society… It [educating for democracy] is one… Continue reading Does Civics Ed = Ideology?

This past week, several members of the GC staff made our way to Philadelphia for two back-to-back conferences: the National Action Civics Collaborative (NACC) and the National Conference on Citizenship (NCoC). Though the organizations differ markedly in terms of size and name recognition (NACC was co-founded by Scott Warren two years ago, and NCoC was… Continue reading Making Action Civics Salient

I recently finished Michael Sandel’s What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets, and experienced a mini-episode of catharsis. (You may have heard of Sandel before for the popular class called “Justice” he teaches at Harvard and the eponymous book.) Finally, a book that articulates well why so many of us experience a vague… Continue reading Have Markets Gone Too Far?

A new semester is almost underway – teachers are going through orientation, DCs are being recruited and trained, handbooks printed, t-shirts sorted. We’ve done a lot of work over the summer to make this term what is certain to be the best yet. We’ve revised and strengthened the curriculum. We’ve created a new portfolio assessment… Continue reading Who We Are

A few months ago, Meira Levinson, a professor at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education (and a member of GC’s advisory board), published No Citizen Left Behind, a must-read for anyone concerned with the Civic Engagement Gap and equity in our democracy. Meira has been an important influence on our thinking as an organization and our action… Continue reading Book Review: “No Citizen Left Behind”