Arizona high school students now must pass civics test to graduate
Jan 16, 2015, 3:25 PM | Updated: 3:39 pm
PHOENIX — A bill requiring Arizona’s high school students to pass a civics exam to graduate was signed into law Thursday by Gov. Doug Ducey.
The bill requires Arizona students to correctly answer 60 of 100 questions on the test. Passage would be required to earn a high school or GED diploma starting in the 2016-2017 school year.
Arizona is the first state to adopt the measure.
Ducey said during his state of the state address that, should the bill pass the Legislature, he would “sign it immediately.”
Ducey has embraced civics literacy as a key point in his plan to improve education in Arizona. He said many students aren’t learning the basic civics they need to be good citizens.
He added a large percentage can’t identify people such as former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, former President Ronald Reagan and Founding Father John Adams, the nation’s second president.
“This is an issue that can and should unite us,” Ducey said. “These are our children, and not long from now, it will be for them to vote on who sits in your chairs and who stands at this podium.
“How can we expect them to protect the principles on which this country was founded, if we are not preparing them for that task right now?”
The Arizona Education Association, which represents 20,000 teachers, is opposed to the test but did not actively lobby against it because it is not a top priority, spokeswoman Sheenae Shannon said.
“Mostly it’s just because this is another high stakes test, and an unfunded one at that,” Shannon said. “Some students may not take tests very well, some students may do better at math, or science.
“We don’t want rote memorization to be the only determination of why a student can graduate high school.”
Republican Sen. Steve Yarbrough, who carried the Senate bill, said knowing basic government structure and U.S. history is essential for all students.
The test would be taken directly from the U.S. Citizenship and Naturalization Services, so little cost is expected.
“So no one is going to have to design a new test and administering the test is going to take a minimum amount of time,” he said. “So hopefully there will be as close to no cost as possible.”
The education association said there will be costs for administering, grading and certifying the results of the test, at the least.
Former justice O’Connor, an Arizona native, has made civics education a prime focus in recent years.
“We’re failing to impart the basic knowledge young people need to know to be effective citizens,” O’Connor said at an event in New Hampshire in September.
“In too many schools, the subject of civics is considered an elective or peripheral subject.”
“Our founding fathers, and mothers, didn’t consider civic education to be an elective,” she added.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
