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National Consortium on Youth Civic Engagement |
The Barbara and Edward Netter Center for Community Partnerships at the
University of Pennsylvania is building on its twenty years of
developing university-school
partnerships, especially the university-assisted community school
model, to create a “National Consortium on Youth Civic Engagement” that
supports the goal of the Campaign for the Civic Mission of
Schools—Education for Democracy to work with “advocates from across the
political spectrum to dramatically elevate civic learning as an
educational priority.” The Campaign seeks to engage higher
education,
with a focus on schools and departments of education, more fully in the
Campaign and in developing civic learning in K-12 schools. The
Netter Center will
assist the Campaign in connecting to higher education, helping the
Campaign to influence not only pre-service training needs but also to
promote a broader understanding of the contribution a wide range of
disciplines, particularly in the Arts and Sciences, can make to
“education for democracy.” The Netter Center works primarily in
the states that have
received major funding from the Campaign.
Our goal is to help the Campaign create a sustainable K-16 strategy to
advance civic engagement in young people, especially those from low
income, mainly minority and immigrant, communities. These young people
are too often the most disaffected and skeptical of American civic and
political life as well as of their own ability to effect positive
change in their schools and communities. The university-assisted
community school model fosters democratic partnerships and helps bring
resources to these schools to create and sustain an integrated K-16
curriculum that develops a sense of a “democratic self,” to quote the
apt phrase of the Compact for Learning and Citizenship. The strategy
includes development of civic knowledge and skills through service
learning that is community problem solving oriented and incorporates
youth development principles.
National Consortium on Youth Civic Engagement:
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