PITTSBURGH – Helping students understand how democracy works is critical to helping them become active and involved citizens as adults, Pennsylvania First Lady Judge Marjorie O. Rendell and Education Secretary Gerald L. Zahorchak said while hosting a regional summit on civics education in Pittsburgh.
“There is no greater gift that we can leave our youth than an understanding of our democracy and how democracy works,” Rendell said. “This summit is an excellent opportunity to bring together teachers, administrators, and other education professionals with nonprofit leaders and members of the legal community to learn about the state’s academic standards and shape a vision for civics education in Pennsylvania.”
Today’s summit at the Senator John Heinz History Center is the second in a series of civics education mini-summits that will be conducted statewide with Rendell and Zahorchak.
“To ensure success in the classroom our teachers need to understand what targets they are shooting for,” Zahorchak said. “This summit is an excellent forum to continue the discussion of the important role standards play in student achievement.”
Beginning in the fall of 2006, the Pennsylvania Department of Education initiated the creation of Standards-Aligned Systems for mathematics, literacy, science and social science. These systems are designed to provide a repository of resources and supports that are research-based and aligned to Pennsylvania’s academic standards. In each discipline, teams of educators continue to refine the “big ideas” of their disciplines and to supply a targeted list of concepts and competencies that all students must achieve as they progress through the K-12 experience.
Rendell has been active in promoting citizenship learning through her initiative, the Pennsylvania Coalition for Representative Democracy, or PennCORD, which is a unique union of educational, advocacy and governmental organizations that are committed to improving civics education for students in grades K-12.
For more information about PennCORD, visit here. For more information on Pennsylvania’s education efforts, visit the Department of Education online.
