Amendment 8 to the Florida Constitution includes a requirement for K12 civics education which the Florida Department of Education already requires for seventh grade. There’s also a muddy mess about a post secondary civics literacy requirement based on HB 7069. The law requires an existing exam to measure civics literacy for a course that does not exist. A faculty committee was formed to develop the competencies, but nothing has come of it up to now.
An analysis of the requirement was prepared by the House staff.
OPPAGA studied the civics literacy option and found no general agreement on what civics literacy is. The topics are broad: U.S. and State History, economics, U.S. Government, Economics, and of course the U.S. Constitution.
Florida Politics published an article by Bob Halladay who questions the legality of the effort to build the college level test that is currently under contract with the University of Central Florida. The law requires the course to administer an ‘existing’ test, but there isn’t one. Given the number and courses involved, some argue that the U.S. Immigration Test should be the model for a course.
It is difficult to fathom what the sudden interest in civics literacy is all about. One wonders if it is related to an earlier proposal to require instruction in economic theories behind anti government ideologies. One think we know for sure….we do not need another test. The current seventh grade civics test has lots of facts no doubt soon forgotten.