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Education Department Launches America 250 Civics Coalition as New Data Intensifies Curriculum Debate

Fresh findings on civic knowledge are driving campaigns for civics testing alongside renewed scrutiny of how history is taught.

FILE - Desks fill a classroom in a high school in Pennsylvania on Wednesday, May 3, 2023. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
FILE - Student belongings are left behind in a classroom a day after the shooting of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, Thursday, Sept. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)
FILE - Fifth grade students at St. John Berchmans' school draw pictures of Blessed Carlo Acutis, who will be canonized a saint by Pope Leo XIV, during a class activity on Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2025, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)
A visitor browses an exhibition about "The Battle Over Lynching" in the United States at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture on Aug. 28, 2025, in Washington. The Trump administration will review the exhibition contents of 18 Smithsonian museums to reflect “unity, progress, and enduring values that define the American story” ahead of the nation’s 250th anniversary celebrations. (Alex Wong/Getty)

Overview

  • The coalition brings together roughly 40 organizations, including Turning Point USA and Hillsdale College, to promote founding‑principles‑focused civics instruction.
  • A Woodrow Wilson Institute study reports that about one in three Americans could pass a citizenship‑style exam, with especially weak results among adults under 45.
  • Polling for the America First Policy Institute found 86% of native‑born adults answered at least 11 of 18 naturalization‑style questions correctly, highlighting uneven grasp of basic government facts.
  • Supporters describe the effort as a patriotic renewal ahead of the 2026 semiquincentennial and back proposals such as requiring a civics test for high school graduation.
  • Critics argue the initiative risks sanitizing curricula by downplaying slavery, segregation and other injustices, and they advocate community‑based, critical civic education alternatives.