Beliefs, values, and actual skills in becoming active citizens are honed through learning with and from community members. Researchers insist that effective citizenship is an active role and therefore that preparation for it must be active as well, involving students directly in their communities. The consortium also has developed a civic education grant program to provide seed money for projects that nurture citizenship. Grant criteria reflect the consortium's advocacy of community-based education. Collaborative projects, especially partnerships between schools and community organizations, nonprofit agencies, or local government agencies, are preferred.
Students lack firsthand contact with public officials in city, county, and state government.
Students lack opportunities to apply classroom civics lessons to real problems. Teachers have insufficient preparation in teaching civic education. Students fail to realize the importance of democracy. Selected from more than 100 barriers identified by partners, these five will provide consortium work groups with a screen for determining whether proposals take the appropriate directions. Response to the grant program has been overwhelming, with proposals coming in from groups across North Carolina.