What can be done to strengthen the gains California has made, while encouraging growth in those areas where civic engagement is faltering? There are no easy answers or a silver bullet to bring an instant solution. However, policy recommendations can be offered as pathways of improvement.

Civic engagement requires lifelong learning and participation. Civic engagement embraces community involvement and improvement, continued education on political processes, and active participation in government—including the all–important watchdog role.

The recommendations listed below consider the many facets of civic engagement, and recognize individual citizens, governmental entities, and the public, private, and nonprofit sectors need to work together to improve the state's civic health index.

Four years ago the Education Commission of the States made four policy recommendations that are still relevant today, in the larger context of civic education. They are in its place included here with some additional ideas in parenthesis.

1. Extending citizenship education into the elementary and middle grades (with introductions in the primary grades where children are so eager to learn)

2. Making citizenship education experience grounded in knowledge and explicitly designed to engage students (taking them from passive learner to active participant)

3. Allowing more time for preparation and professional development to teach citizenship education

4. Recognizing testing and assessment as important elements of any citizenship education program, and encouraging legislators to support the development of tests that go beyond civic knowledge

ADDITIONAL RECOMMENDATIONS
5. Creating a robust educational out–reach to all adults, in particular to the immigrant population, on the practical structure and function of government and on the development of the civic engagement skills needed as a citizen of this democratic society.

6. Incorporating civic educational strategies across the curriculum in all teacher–preparation programs.

7. Training in public engagement for municipal ofcials: This “new normal” era is creating new relationships between citizens and their public leaders. From engaging the public in vital budget decisions to including them in new public–private partnerships for service delivery, participatory governance is becoming the new civic–leadership skill. In other states, the Secretary of State coordinates some of these collaborative projects at the local level.

8. Better alignment of service delivery and revenue responsibilities in California: One of the reasons Californians explain their disengagement is the perception that many major policy decisions are “made in Sacramento.” Recent election results demonstrate that residents are much more willing to support public services where the decision–making is kept as local as possible.

9. Broaden the Brown Act: Typically regarded as a “check box” by many local ofcials, and organized through the standard “three minutes at the microphone,” public engagement projects that include facilitated, deliberative processes should be considered conforming to regulated public meeting structures. Online public engagement on local policy issues should also be supported as being part of a legal and legitimate public process.

Innovative civic education programs are already available in California. We need not reinvent the wheel. What is needed is a vehicle to make them widespread across the population.