Subscribe to NewsCivics and Civility Summit: Voices of the Kansas People
Friday, November 2, 2007
K-State Alumni Center
Kansas State University
The Center for Engagement and Community Development (CECD) is collaborating with the Center for Civic Education, the Kansas State Department of Education, Judge Pierron of the Kansas Court of Appeals, the Kansas Press Association, KTWU, and the National Park Service to host the Civics and Civility Summit: Voices of the Kansas People November 2, 2007, at the Alumni Center on the Kansas State University campus.
Civic education and understanding is vital to the preservation and improvement of our democracy. Today, more than ever before, Americans need to know how our government works as well as understand and practice the moral and civic values necessary to engage in a participatory democracy. In a 2000 national Gallup Poll, Americans ranked "preparing people to become responsible citizens" as the number-one purpose of our nation's schools. In the 2006 Spellings Report on U.S. Higher Education, the authors spoke of the need to empower our citizens through education. Consistently, the public has believed that students should be taught civic competence, values, dispositions and the skills needed to participate in a democratic society. In addition to schools, however, many other institutions - from religious congregations to scouting organizations to political parties to 4-H clubs to NGOs - are also working to develop responsible citizens.
In confronting this important public issue, the Center for Engagement and Community Development and its partner are bringing together political, educational, and community leaders to:
- Better understand the current state of civic understanding and civility by identifying the civic knowledge, skills, and dispositions of Kansans,
- Build an awareness of civic programs available to schools and focus on civic literacy for 21st century learning, and
- Identify civic community needs, solutions for addressing those needs, build local organizational capacities for public problem solving.
Invited speakers include: U.S. Senator Pat Roberts; Under Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education, Sarah Martinez Tucker; Representative Nancy Boyda; the Honorable Marla Luckert, Kansas Supreme Court; the Honorable J. Thomas Marten, Kansas Court of Appeals; Kansas Secretary of State Ron Thornburgh.
For more information and to register for this summit, see the Summit website.