Student Support and Academic Enrichment: Fund Civics, Not Guns

GC’s response to a report that Secretary DeVos may use ESSA Title IV funding to arm teachers

Earlier this week, a report surfaced that Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is considering using federal funding to support a program to arm school teachers with guns. This program would specifically derive its funds from a grant program that includes civics funding. As an organization that promotes effective civics learning across the country, we are extremely concerned with the report.

Since its passage in 2015, Generation Citizen, along with the civics education community, has celebrated the bipartisan federal education policy, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), for its inclusion of civics education as a priority and funding opportunity.

Through its Title IV, Student Support and Academic Enrichment (SSAE) Grants, funding can be used by school districts to 1) provide students with a well-rounded education 2) support safe and healthy students and 3) support the effective use of technology.

The first bucket, providing students with a well-rounded education, includes civics, as well as other critical programs including STEM, arts, and college and career counseling.

Through the second provision (supporting safe and healthy schools), Secretary DeVos is proposing using SSAE funding to support a potential program to arm school teachers with guns. There is no clause prohibiting these funds from being used for the purchase of firearms, yet it is undeniable that this would be a stark and unprecedented departure from the policy’s intention of enhancing and enriching learning for our nation’s youth.

We have witnessed the opportunity that Title IV SSAE grants have offered school districts across the country to bring an effective civics education to their classrooms and prepare their students for lifelong citizenship. Repatriating some of this funding away from civics will only add greater deficit to a subject that our students, and the nation, so critically need in our schools today.

We urge the Secretary to maintain Title IV funding for its initial intent, not for arming teachers.