Civic Education

From the Maryland League of Women Voters.

How sad.

Proposed discontinuation of the Maryland High School Assessment for Government

The Governor and State Department of Education have proposed that the budget for the next fiscal year include discontinuation of the Maryland High School Assessment for Government. When LWVMD studied the high school assessment issue in 2005, no consensus was reached on whether passage of statewide, course-related testing should be required to determine eligibility for high school graduation. Nonetheless, knowledge of government is certainly part of the League mission, and individual members have expressed strong interest in this topic. We wanted to alert you of this proposed cut and the opportunity to express your personal opinion about the issue to the Governor, the State Superintendent and Board of Education, and members of the General Assembly.

Many within the social studies field believe elimination of the assessment test would lead to less emphasis on "civics" in our public schools. For more information on the proposed cuts and the position of the Maryland Council for the Social Studies in opposition to this action, please check out the MCSS website: www.mdcss.org.

Barbara Sanders,
LWVMD VP, Voter Services and
League representative on the Maryland Commission on Civic Literacy