The Congressional Conferences on Civic Education are sponsored by the Alliance for Representative Democracy and hosted by the Joint Leadership of the U.S. Congress.  The conferences complement the ongoing Campaign to Promote Civic Education sponsored by the Center for Civic Education. 

The conferences are designed to help strengthen our democracy by furthering the public’s knowledge and engagement in the civic and political affairs of the nation.  By fully engaging the public through state action teams, the series of conferences has initiated a national movement to strengthen civic education at the state and local levels.  In doing so, the conferences seek to restore the historic civic mission of our nation’s schools.

Conference Declaration
Adopted by the Delegates to the Fourth Congressional Conference on Civic Education, November 18-20, 2006.

Conference Participants

The core group of conference participants consists of delegations from each of the fifty states and the District of Columbia.  Delegations include state legislators, especially education committee chairs; representatives of governors, state superintendents and other state officials; and influential civic education leaders.  Other participants include at-large delegates from national organizations and representatives from the federal government who are committed to addressing solutions to the problems of civic engagement and civic education in our nation.  View the Participant list from the 2006 Congressional Conference on Civic Education.

Activities and Accomplishments

State delegations created action plans at the initial conference in September 2003.  The action plans are designed to build improved policy support for civic education at the state and local levels.  Since then, delegations have developed their action plans and widened their scope of influence.  Activities include the following:

• Twenty-nine delegations have held state summits, conferences, joint legislative sessions and symposiums on civic education modeled on the Congressional Conference. 
  
  
• Twenty-six states have conducted thorough surveys of the current policies affecting civic education as well as existing district and state practice.
  
  
• Alaska, Arizona, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Nebraska, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia and Virginia have created officially sanctioned state Commissions on Civic Education or Civic Literacy.
  
  
• Legislators attending the Congressional Conferences—and other legislators supportive of civic education—from 36 states have introduced legislation to strengthen civic education during the 2003-2007 legislative sessions.  Dozens of these measures have been enacted.

View Enacted Civic Education Legislation, 2004-2007.