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Since 2011
Gabe Fleisher, Editor-in-Chief
wakeuptopolitics@gmail.com

wakeuptopolitics.com @WakeUp2Politics

From the Editors Teachers Desk

Hello everyone! I am so, so, SO excited for todays edition of Wake Up To Politics
and the school year coming up. Hopefully, you received my email yesterday, and
know that the Wake Up returns today from a long summer break, and we are
jumping right in. This is a special, school-themed Back-to-School edition, and
will include an exclusive interview with former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day
OConnor.

Sandra Day OConnor was an Arizona elected official and judge when appointed
by President Ronald Reagan to be Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the
United States. After being confirmed and taking office in September 1981,
OConnor joined the High Court as its first female member, and was soon as the
swing vote on the bench for most of her time as a Justice. OConnor stepped down
from the Supreme Court in July 2005, and in her retirement has served as
Chancellor of The College of William & Mary, received the Presidential Medal of
Freedom from President Barack Obama, and been named by multiple publications
as among the worlds most powerful women.
My exclusive interview with Justice OConnor focused on the main project of her
retirement from the Supreme Court: iCivics, a civic-based video game website she
founded to engage American students in civics. Please learn more in the feature
below, and then (students and teachers especially) check out OConnors initiative
at www.icivics.org.
After my exclusive, we have other Back-to-School stuff, and a little news as well
to start of the school year!
Lets make it a great day, and the start to a fabulous school year!
Gabe Fleisher
Editor-in-Chief
Wake Up To Politics

Back-to-School Edition Exclusive Interview:

OConnor Tells Kids to Download Democracy

First Female Supreme Court Justice Tells Wake Up To Politics About
Her Civic Video Games
By Gabe Fleisher, Editor-in-Chief

Civic Literacy Deficit

In 2010, the National
Assessment Governing
Board, authorized by the
U.S. Department of
Education, released The
Nations Report Card on
civics for the first time in
eight years, the result of
testing over 265,000
fourth, eighth, and
twelfth grade students in
nearly 1,500 schools
across America. The
results were
distressing, at least to
former Supreme Court
Justice Sandra Day
OConnor, the first
woman to sit on the
highest court in the land.

Justice Sandra Day OConnor

This nationwide assessment test includes dozens of questions on civics, some

multiple choice, and others constructed response. Upon completing the test, the
students are grouped into basic, proficient, and advanced categories, with
each question categorized the same way. In the 2010 civics Report Card, a full

two-thirds of students scored below proficient. For the 8th graders tested, that
number was 72%. Questions placed on the proficient level, which only 22% of
8th grade students scored, included correctly choosing a role performed by the
Supreme Court from a list of multiple choices.
At this point, she told me in an exclusive interview, Sandra Day OConnor, had
retired from that same court a few years before, one of the most influential women
in modern history and well-known as the Supreme Courts swing vote and
independent voice, and was not actively engaging in public life for the first time
since attending law school, more than five decades before.
Shortly after I retired from the Supreme Court [in 2006], I began looking for new
challenges to address and opportunities to continue participating in civics, the
former Justice said. While doing so I discovered something very distressing:
Americans knew shockingly little about our government and democracy.
OConnor, now 84, discovered this through seeing statistics from assessments such
as the 2010 Report Card, and decided, Something had to be done to reinvigorate
civic learning in America. And that she was the one to do it. Upon deciding her
next challenge to attack, OConnor recognized that the most important step would
be to find a way to make [civic education] materials engaging and fun for young
people, acknowledging old civic education models were dry and boring, and had
even failed to capture my interest when I was a student, she admitted. The
former jurist knew she had to work and jazz things up a bit and bring civic
education into the 21st century
Birth of iCivics
And thus iCivics was born. And a self-described old cowgirl turned Supreme
Court justice had become an unlikely ambassador for video games. In February
2009, three years after leaving the bench, Justice OConnor founded Our Courts,
along with Georgetown University Law School and Arizona State University. The
Our Courts initiative featured civics curriculum aimed at seventh-, eighth-, and
ninth-grade students, and by August 2009, the first two games, Supreme Decision
(where the player is a law clerk, assisting a Supreme Court justice in deciding her

position in a case) and Do I Have a Right? (where the player runs a constitutional
law firm), were launched.
By May 2010, the project expanded and rebranded, as Our Courts became iCivics.
Today, 28 interactive games and lesson plans for teachers are the cornerstone of
the iCivics program, which can be found at www.icivics.org. But can videogames
really turnaround the civic literacy deficit our country is facing, I asked Justice
OConnor?
The justice reported that a study by
the Persephone Group showed results
of a pre-test and post-test given to
students before and after playing the
first two iCivics games. After
playing Do I Have a Right once, test
scores improved by 13.7%, and
playing at least twice resulted in a
score boost of 18.3%. In addition,
Arizona State University conducted a
study of students playing Branches
of Power, which takes students through the
The iCivics game Do I Have a Right?
process of lawmaking through the vantage
point of playing members of each branch of government. After playing, 78% of all
students reported better understanding of how the government worked, while
86% of the students said they enjoyed playing the game. Since the program was
founded, 65,000 teachers have registered iCivics accounts, and over 11 million
games have been played on the website.
I am very pleased with iCivics growth in such a short period of time, but, of
course there is always room for improvement, Justice OConnor said in response
to these shows of growth and success. I look forward to iCivics continued growth
in the coming years.

Going Ahead
How did we get in this deficit of civic knowledge in the first place? Part of it goes
back to the No Child Left Behind law, which initiated a nationwide focus on math,
writing, and science as those became the subjects required for standardized tests.
As a result, civics was treated in many schools as an elective, and pushed aside
and mistakenly treated as a distraction from preparing students for college and a
career, according to former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day OConnor. This,
she maintains, is dangerous, not only to civic knowledge, but to civic engagement
when students become voters in a few short years as well.
And this problem will likely perpetuate if old civic
education models are continued to be taught, which
OConnor says dont capture the attention of learners
or the true nature of civics [as] an active subject...about
participating in the political process. Instead, she
believes, new and interactive models, such as iCivics,
must be taught in schools. Once civics becomes as part
of the curriculum as language arts, math, or
science...Voting will come naturally [to the next
generation].
Going forward, iCivics is attempting to convert all of its
games to apps compatible to tablet and smart phone
formats, allowing young people to take the programs
content wherever they go. After decades of tough cases
while serving on the highest court in the land,
OConnor says of the iCivics project, This is by far my
most important work yet.

Sandra Day OConnor says of iCivics: This

is by far my most important work yet.
She plans to continue traveling the
country and working to improve iCivics
and engage students in their democracy.

...We have been failing to impart the basic knowledge

that young people need to become effective citizens and leaders...[and] we all have
a role to play in shaping the character of our nation, Justice OConnor believes.
Until that knowledge is imparted, she plans to continue working to engage students
in the subject she has been intimately involved in her whole life. Through the
iCivics program, OConnor is creating the lessons of the future, by tapping into the

countless hours spent by students on the computer and playing video games, as she
encourages the next generation to click into civics and download democracy.

Fury in Ferguson
A special column covering the aftermath of a police shooting in Ferguson, Missouri

Michael Brown Funeral Set for Today Funeral services for Michael
Brown, the black 18-year-old shot and killed by a police officer in Ferguson,
Missouri, will be held today.
Browns shooting, while unarmed, by white police officer Darren Wilson
has set off protests lasting more than a week in Ferguson. As protestors
chanted (mostly peacefully), police responded with use of tear gas and
rubber bullets to subdue them. Today, as his son is laid to rest, Michael
Browns father asked the city of Ferguson for a day-long moment of silence
without protests.
I would like for no protesting going on, Michael Brown, Sr. told St. Louis
hip-hop station Hot 104.1 FM. We just want a moment of silence that
whole day. Just out of respect for our son.
The funeral is being held at 10 AM, in a local church that can hold up to
4,500. White House officials and other national figures (including Rev. Al
Sharpton, Obamas go-to man on race, who will deliver the eulogy).

Question Homework of the Day

While this space is usually for a daily trivia question, today it is optional
homework for you, in going with our Back-to-School theme:
After reading Downloading Democracy, the Wake Up To Politics
exclusive feature on Justice Sandra Day OConnors civics initiative, are you
inspired to test your own civics education and learn more? Of course, a huge
way to do that is by just reading Wake Up To Politics every day. Or visiting
OConnors iCivics website and playing games on civics.
OR you could take the ultimate test. The very same test immigrants take
when striving to join this country as citizens, which all natural-born citizens
(as lifelong citizens of this nation) should, in theory, know as well.

 Heres how it works: This is a link to 100 questions on civics. During their
naturalization interview, for the civics portion, applicants will be asked up to
10 questions from that list of 100. Correctly answering 6 counts for passing
the test.
Have a friend, family member, student, teacher, co-worker, etc. pick 10
questions from the list and ask you them. Or really put your civics
knowledge to the test and see how well you fare with all 100 I did this with
my mom, and got a pretty good score.
Then...email me with your score and we can see which one is the best. This
is not, of course, a competition...merely an opportunity to see how well you
know your nations history and democracy, and how you can improve in that
knowledge.