Hello! Welcome! We are excited to share the work we have been doing under the direction of the Center for American Civics at Arizona State University with funding from the GEER Grant. This work is done by teachers for teachers because we believe that teachers are the experts and can help us in our goal to elevate civic education in our state.
We have a group of 30 teachers from around our great state, who span K-12 education. This group of teachers will be the leaders in strengthening civic education for Arizona. This fantastic assembly of civic educators represents 22 districts in Arizona that have a passion for civic renewal. Our Teacher Task Force is split geographically into Northern Arizona led by Tara Bartlett, a Ph.D. student at ASU, Central Arizona led by Tammy Waller, Director for K-12 Education, and Southern Arizona led by Jeremy Gypton, Teacher Program Manager at the Ashbrook Center. I am Liz Evans, Civic Education Program Director at the Center for Political Thought and Leadership at Arizona State University. I taught in Arizona schools for 17 years, and am an active teacher leader in our state. I am so proud to be doing this work for the State of Arizona and its incredible educators.
This spring, we hosted seven workshops to train teachers using the Educating for American Democracy Roadmap. After this training, teachers will be aligning our state standards with the EAD Roadmap and creating a plan to implement the roadmap with their current curriculum and lessons.
Although not a collection of lesson plans, the Roadmap helped us rethink and reprioritize what goes into our curricula, allowing us to develop a K—12 educational plan that holistically teaches the full complexity of American history and civics in a way that more deeply engages our local student population. The Roadmap is an advisory document, not a set of standards. We will be looking at the State Standard Guidance document.
At the heart of this work, we know that our state is diverse and local communities know what is best. This is why we have teachers from all around the state doing the work. Check out our teachers here!
I am very excited to showcase the work of these amazing educators.
