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In partnership with practitioners, educators, and scholars across the country, CIRCLE is currently leading and or collaborating with partners on a a series of initiatives focused on  leadership and professional development in K-12 civic learning. Learn more about these opportunities below and reach out to circle@tufts.edu if you have any questions.

For Teachers: Educating for American Democracy Teacher Leadership Task Force

We are looking for dynamic teachers to become Teacher Fellows or Teacher Leaders in the newly formed Task Force on Teacher Leadership for the Educating for American Democracy Initiative. Educating for American Democracy is a convening initiative that started in 2019 with support from the National Endowment for Humanities and U.S. Department of Education, involving stakeholders representing diverse perspectives and backgrounds. Its report, along with companion documents were published in March 2021, kicked off an implementation phase in which Task Forces develop and implement strategies to bring high-quality social studies education to all students.  

The mission of the Teacher Leadership Task Force is to promote mastery of EAD Roadmap and Pedagogy principles among classroom educators; to develop leadership and self-advocacy capacity among teachers who are the lead implementers of EAD in local communities; and to increase teachers’ knowledge and skills to communicate and partner effectively with families, students and local stakeholders. The Teacher Leadership Taskforce (TLTF) is led by two co-chairs: Shannon Salters who is a teacher in Allentown, PA, and Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg, the Newhouse Director of CIRCLE.

These roles in the Task Force are for 12-month terms with 90-minute virtual meetings every month. Details of each position, responsibilities, and stipends are here. The roles are renewable for up to two additional years.  

If you are interested in applying or learning more, please write to CIRCLE senior researcher Noorya Hayat (noorya.hayat@tufts.edu). If you are unable to serve but have other teachers you recommend, please fill out this form.

For District Administrators: Summer Fellowship on Educating for Informed and Equitable Voting

We are excited to share a fellowship opportunity for K-12 school district administrators to expand their knowledge and leadership in promoting efforts to educate for informed and equitable voting in their communities. The fellowship is being co-hosted by the premier research centers on K-12 civic learning in the United States: the Civic Engagement Research Group (CERG) at the University of California, Riverside, and the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at Tufts University.

The fellowship will be eight weekly (virtual) sessions from May to August 2023 and fellows will be given a stipend. 

We believe district administrators are key to integrating and scaling efforts to educate for informed and equitable voting as they can reach many teachers and help build a supportive culture for educators. Our goals for 2023 are to help build to the next general election cycle by continuing support for educators through public webinars for those new to teaching about elections and voting, as well as support a small cohort of district social studies subject area leaders.

As part of this fellowship, district administrators will be exposed to rigorous and cross-ideological frameworks in civic education related to voting and elections and explore the following topics: 1) Role of schools and educators in growing voters, 2) Role of district administrators in supporting schools and educators, 3) Myths about youth voting and ways to analyze voter data, 4) Dynamics that constrain equitable voting, and 5) Dynamics that constrain informed voting. CERG and CIRCLE researchers will also help administrators think about next steps for implementing their efforts for informed and equitable voting in their respective communities.

If you would like to apply for the fellowship or direct it to someone who would be interested, please share this link to the application form. Please contact Leah Bueso (leah.bueso@ucr.edu) and/or Noorya Hayat (noorya.hayat@tufts.edu) for any further information or questions.

For Education Leaders: Preparing Future Voters Pledge

K-12 teachers and administrators need resources, training, and support in order to embed teaching about elections and voting into their classrooms and schools in a way that meets students where they are, and builds from there.

With this need in mind, since 2016, CIRCLE has helped coordinate the Teaching for Democracy Alliance (TFDA), a coalition of national nonpartisan organizations committed to working together to support schools in these efforts. The Alliance creates and aggregates high quality resources for K-12 teachers and administrators to prepare students for democratic participation. It also builds energy for this work within and beyond the education community through support of school and district leaders, conference presentations, and press outreach.

TFDA recently launched the Preparing Future Voters Pledge, designed for school leaders, including school and district administrators and curriculum leads. The PFV pledge seeks to support signatories in recognizing their role in engaging students in quality instruction on voting and elections by providing signatories with programming and support to empower their teachers to teach about voting and elections. Some programming opportunities include panel discussions, peer learning sessions, targeted support and action planning workshops. PFV is open and will begin programming for signers in August 2023.

Learn more and sign the Preparing Future Voters Pledge here.

For Massachusetts Teachers: The Investigating History Curriculum

Investigating History is an innovative, open-source history/social science curriculum that DESE is currently developing for third through seventh grades. It is designed to be fully aligned to the Massachusetts 2018 History/Social Science Framework, engaging students with its content, practice, and literacy standards through an inquiry-based approach. CIRCLE is working with the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) during their iterative development process to evaluate the curriculum and help ensure it meets the needs of students, teachers, and schools across Massachusetts. The first units for Grades 5, 6 and 7 are scheduled to be released publicly in an open-source format in Spring 2023, and the remaining units for these grades will be released on a rolling basis throughout the 2023-24 school year. The 3rd and 4th grade materials are tentatively slated for release in the 2024-25 school year.

Learn more about the curriculum and preparing for implementation.