With only 340 students Incline High School may be small but its AP Government class is scoring big on the state and hopefully national level. After winning the district and state ‘We the People’ competitions — an elementary and secondary school program that promotes civic competence through study of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights — the class’s 27 seniors are in Washington D.C. to participate in the national finals against schools from across the country.
‘We the People: the Citizen and the Constitution’ is a program directed by the Center for Civic Education a nonprofit based in Los Angeles that is dedicated to promoting a responsible citizenry committed to democratic principles and actively engaged in the practice of democracy. Incline High School social studies teacher Milton Hyams a graduate of Sierra Nevada College has been teaching the course for 15 years.
‘We are trying to create critical response’ said Hyams ‘to give the kids the knowledge skills and disposition of being an effective citizen in a representative government.’ The ‘We the People’ class is essentially a constitutional study class. What makes it unique is that it teaches students to present what they learn in a mock congressional hearing. The students are broken up into six groups for the semester that focus on a different topic (What Rights Does the Bill of Rights Protect? How Did the Framers Create the Constitution? What Challenges Might Face American Constitutional Democracy in the Twenty-first Century?) on which they must become an expert. They spend two months researching the answers to three different questions related to their subject and writing four-minute testimonials as if they were citizens going to testify before Congress.
‘It teaches them to be good listeners how to compromise communicate and how to be engaged’ said Hyams. The students also put their skills to the test in competitions against other schools where they get asked one of the three questions after which they have a six-minute cross-examination. A panel of three judges who come from the legal academic and government fields decides the winner. In December the Incline High class competed against six other schools in its congressional district. Judges included staff from Senator Harry Reid’s office the legal and policy director of the ACLU the chief judge of the U.S. district court in Nevada and chairman of the Nevada Transportation Authority. Incline High won.
‘I was not surprised’ said Hyams.
‘The kids had worked really hard. This group of students in particular is a really good team. They respect each other and work well together.’ Having won their district Hyam’s ‘We the People’ class along with second-place winner Reno High School went on to the state competition in February in Las Vegas. Incline won that too beating out five other teams. This weekend they face off against more than 50 schools one from each state in the 25th We the People National Finals at George Mason University in Virginia. The top 10 teams get to make their cases in the hearing rooms of the U.S. House of Representatives which Hyams calls ‘the Final Four or Super Bowl of civic education.’ Incline High has been to nationals before although it has never placed in the top 10. The closest it has come is 11th place.
‘I’m proud that a school of 300-something students can make a dent nationally’ Hyams said. ‘They are competing against some big schools.’ Hyams and his class have had to raise $70000 for the trip to D.C. almost double the amount for past years. This is because the Center for Civic Education which used to pay for the students’ airfare and provide $100 toward food and lodging for each participant lost its federal funding this year. Hyams said he has had tremendous community support namely from the local service clubs and the Nevada State Bar Association.
This year Hyams has had four alumni come back to help coach his current students. He says the graduates’ professions which range from ski patroller to an engineer to a law student show the importance of the ‘We the People’ program.
‘All four of these alumni came back because they see the value in the class’ Hyams said. ‘They are not all lawyers or social science people. It’s a tribute to what ‘We the People’ does — it trains citizens and gives them skills to be successful at what they want to do and be confident.’
