CT,+USA

__The Teaching of Civics in Connecticut __

**State Overview**
toc Originally inhabited by the Alogonquian and Pequot tribes CT was colonized by English settlers in 1636. The Pequot War (1637) was the first among many, ultimately successful attempts by Europeans to remove Natives from New England. After independence from Great Britain, Connecticut was the fifth state to ratify the Constitution (1788).

As of the 2000 Connecticut is home to 3.4 million people who inhabit a territory of 5,018 square miles making it the third smallest state in the nation by size and twenty-ninth by population.

The government in Connecticut is organized into three branches: legislative, executive, and judicial. The bicameral legislature, also known as the General Assembly is divided into a house of representatives (151 members) and a senate (36 members). The chief executive is a governor who is elected by the people of the state to a four-year term. There is also a three-tiered court system (superior, appellate, supreme).

 **Context**

Public schools in Connecticut are orga nized in a similar fashion to other states across the nation. Children start attending kindergarten around the age of five, if adequate progress is made, then students move to first grade, then second and so on until completing their senior year in high school (twelfth grade). State requires that the school year should consist of no less than 180 days and that students must complete at least 900 hours of “actual work.” In addition, statues specify that all high school students take “at least one-half credit course on civics and American Government…” in order to graduate.

The system itself is highly localized. Aside from the sixteen schools that make up Connecticut Technical High School System (CTHSS) control is highly localized with local boards of educations dictating much in the way of educational policy. According to state statute Sec. 10-221**.** “ Boards of education shall prescribe rules for the management, studies, classification and discipline of the public schools and, subject to the control of the State Board of Education, the textbooks to be used; shall make rules for the control, within their respective jurisdictions, of school library media centers and approve the selection of books and other educational media therefor, and shall approve plans for public school buildings and superintend any high or graded school in the manner specified in this title.”

**Subject Content Standards **
It should be noted that being a state where education is controlled by local school districts the standards presented here are referred to by the state as suggestions. It is up to individual districts to employ them on their own to whatever extent they see fit Social Studies standards in Connecticut are divided into three categories: Content Knowledge(1), History/Social Studies Literacy Skills (2) and Application(3). Within each of these standards are different strands to highlight relevant understandings. Important strands related to civics are, but not limited to the following:
 * 1.7 – Explain the purpose, structures and functions of government and law at the local, state, national and international levels.
 * 1.8 – Describe the interactions between citizens and their government in the making and implementation of laws.
 * 1.9 – Understand the rights and responsibilities of citizens.
 * 1.13 Understand the characteristics of and interactions among culture, social systems and institutions.
 * 3.2 – Analyze and evaluate human action in historical and/or contemporary contexts from alternative points of view.
 * 3.3 - Apply appropriate historical, geographic, political, economic and cultural concepts and methods in proposing and evaluating solutions to con- temporary problems.

**Materials** (e.g. textbooks, websites)
Due to the fact that control of curriculum is localized, the materials used vary by school district. In the district where I work, the textbook (Magruder's //American Government//) is selected by the social studies department although the selection needed board approval.

**Nature of Curriculum** (based on the models of civic education)
Based on the standards that have been presented above, it would seem that the nature of curriculum in Connecticut includes elements of the liberal and diversity models and to a lesser extent the republican model. Several of the standards mentioned above (1.7 and 1.8) seem to suggest the liberal model. 1.8 in particular could be interpreted by some people as republican in nature, although that may be a bit of a stretch. The fact that some standards ask students to consider various viewpoints and interactions of different cultures suggests the diversity model. The one model the standards do not suggest is the critical model. It is important to be cognizant of the fact that based on the localized nature of education in Connecticut it is possible that in some districts all of these models could be in place, while in others only one might be utilized.

**Main Issues and Challenges **
As earlier noted, the biggest challenge to civic education in Connecticut is the localized nature of the system. As a result of this, students will leave the public school system with very different visions of what it means to be a citizen depending on the town that they reside in. The only way to ensure that students in Connecticut schools graduate with similar conceptions of civic education is to have stronger central control from the state to ensure that the suggested standards become required and develop a way to assess the effectiveness of schools in implementing them. With that being said, there could also be a stronger republican component in the standards. Students need to recognize that there are time when they need to sacrifice their own personal interests to the needs of the community. Perhaps integrating more republican aspects into the standards is a way to achieve that objective.

**Resources **

 * Connecticut. (2011). //Abc-clio//. Retrieved July 14, 2011, from http://americanhistory.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/1114359?terms=connecticut
 * //Ct.gov: about connecticut//. (2011, January 5). Retrieved from http://www.ct.gov/ctportal/cwp/view.asp?a=843&q=246434
 * Connecticut General Assembly, (n.d.). //Chapter 170 boards of education// Retrieved from http://www.cga.ct.gov/2005/pub/chap170.htm
 * Coleman, George. Connecticut Department of Education, (2011). //Circular letter c-9// Hartford, CT: Retrieved from http://www.sde.ct.gov/sde/lib/sde/pdf/circ/circ10-11/c9.pdf
 * //Introduction to the cthss//. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.cttech.org/central/about-us/intro.htm
 * Connecticut General Assembly, (2010). //Raised bill no. 5165// Hartford, CT: Retrieved from ftp://ftp.cga.ct.gov/2010/tob/h/2010HB-05165-R00-HB.htm
 * Connecticut Department of Education, (2009).//Connecticut social studies curriculum framework: grades pk-12// Hartford, CT: Retrieved from http://www.sde.ct.gov/sde/lib/sde/pdf/curriculum/socialstudies/ssfrmwk_10-6-09.pdf