Short Takes: Real world civics program brings politics to life 

Six lucky Sacramento high school students got a vivid introduction to Sacramento politics this summer as part of LegiSchool, a civics education program that puts students right in the middle of the action. LegiSchool summer interns haunt the halls of the state Capitol, sit in on courtroom trials and legislative hearings, meet judges and lawmakers and participate in press briefings just like working reporters.

The Real World Civics Summer Internship program is just one aspect of this innovative project that’s funded by the Legislature and operated by the state and California State University.

During the regular school year, LegiSchool brings students from throughout the state together to debate current issues and legislation with state lawmakers. The program is designed to show young people how government impacts their daily lives and why it is critical that they get involved in the policy-making process.

LegiSchool Director Kolleen Ostgaard is also very involved in the California Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools, which is part of a national push to improve civic education in the public schools. She said LegiSchool tries to reach a diverse array of students, not just college-bound, straight-A students.

“We don’t just want the best and brightest involved in our programs,” she says. “We don’t set a minimum grade point average for participation. Instead, LegiSchool activities involve students from all backgrounds and abilities. We try to incorporate students who may not have access to some of the enrichment opportunities available to those at affluent schools.”

Daniel Hernandez, who teaches government, economics and leadership at Sacramento City Unified’s Luther Burbank High School, works with the kind of students LegiSchool is designed to inspire. This year, for the first time, he applied for funds from LegiSchool to take three seniors to Los Angeles for a town hall meeting on gang violence. “I took the first three students who filled out the paperwork,” he says.

All three were Latinas from different backgrounds, Hernandez says, and it turned out all three had been personally touched in some way by gangs and violence.

The trip made a real impact. “It was the first time that two of these students had ever been on an airplane,” he says.
Hernandez says his students were too shy to talk publicly at the meeting. “But they had the chance to see some legislators and to hear about laws being debated to deal with the issue,” he says. “They saw that there were people who try to make a difference, including peer mentors their own age.”

On the flight back to Sacramento, he says, his students had a spirited discussion about their own experiences and ideas about  gang violence. “They were very animated on the ride back,” he says. “Later they made a presentation to the class about the experience, which for these students was significant.”

Last spring, Hernandez took 60 students to a mock legislative hearing in the Capitol. “It was great,” he says. “The students sat in the same chairs the committee members use. They debated the pros and cons of legislation,”

“I am a huge fan of LegiSchool,” he says. “When I tried teaching leadership out of the book, it was difficult to get my students to care at all. I had to take them outside the book.”