Committee introduces bill to revise high-school civics instruction and testing

Representative Joseph Wisniewski introduced RS 32567 to the House Committee on Education, saying the bill would move existing administrative rules into statutory code and revise requirements for civics training and related testing in public high schools.

The measure would change the content of civics assessments used in public high schools. "In the past the testing has been based on the naturalization test that foreign aliens are given when they apply for citizenship," Representative Wisniewski said. He told the committee that many items on that test are trivia — for example, naming oceans or rivers — and that the proposed bill focuses instead on topics more directly related to government and civic processes.

The bill text notes that the citizenship naturalization test currently used for comparison has a 60% passing threshold for new citizens; Representative Wisniewski said that threshold and question selection are not appropriate for measuring civic knowledge in high-school students. He said RS 32567 “outlines a whole bunch of other things that are more pertinent to the government and civics” and offered to take questions.

There was no further committee debate on the measure. Representative Hawkins moved to introduce RS 32567; the committee approved the motion by voice vote and the measure was referred to committee for further consideration.

The committee did not at this hearing set a statutory testing standard or specify a passing score for the new high-school civics assessment; the RS as introduced describes topics to be covered and transfers rule language into code. No formal amendments or fiscal details were presented during the hearing.