Conservative nonprofits are making American civics great again

Hand a random American adult the multiple-choice test immigrants have to pass to become citizens and watch what happens. A national survey found that roughly two out of three of them fail it. Americans over 65 posted the highest passing rate, while those under 45 turned in the worst scores by a wide margin. Most cannot correctly identify the original thirteen colonies. Most do not know why we fought the Cold War, and two percent of those surveyed blamed it on “climate change.”

It’s pretty easy to guess which generation supplied that two percent.

A shocking number also think the Constitution was ratified the same year we declared independence, off by more than a decade. These are supposed to be basic questions that every educated American should be able to answer, but sadly, the people we require to prove they understand this country are outperforming the people who were handed it for free.

America just turned 250 years old. This historical moment demands that we actually know what we are celebrating: the ideas, the sacrifices, and the arguments around self-government that this country was built on. If two-thirds of us cannot pass the citizenship test, what does America’s 250th birthday even mean to us?

You cannot properly celebrate a story you were never taught.

Here is the good news. A growing number of conservative nonprofits got tired of complaining about this and actually started fixing it. They are writing curriculum, paying teachers to get trained on it, making content kids will actually sit down and watch, and putting real civics programming in front of both students and adults.

I have had a front-row seat to some of this work, helping to create and host the first three episodes of Street Smarts, PragerU Kids’ civics gameshow that puts real middle and high schoolers on the spot in front of a camera and asks them what they actually know about their own government.

Here are two examples of episodes I hosted.

In The Executive Branch, we quizzed kids on the president, the vice president, and the cabinet. These are parts of government most students only ever encounter through headlines about whoever the current occupant of the Oval Office happens to be, and even then without real understanding of how the office works.

In The Bill of Rights, we tested whether they could name the first ten amendments, the ten that protect their speech, their faith, their right to defend themselves and their homes.

Watching a kid light up when they finally land an answer they were not sure of is exactly the kind of civics education I wish I was able to experience more of when I was standing in front of a classroom. PragerU built out a whole series of these episodes, backed by a full civics workbook. It is a real and sustained investment in civics education. All for free on their website.

In another example of good work in this space, the Heritage Foundation is partnering with college professors to build out curriculum modules, offering teacher training stipends of up to $3,000 per teacher, and tying student scholarships directly to the program. I recently sat in on a meeting where Heritage laid out its plans for a full civics and history curriculum built around the Land of Hope textbook series.

This is how you build something that outlasts a single school year. You invest in the teachers who will carry it forward and the students who will benefit from it.

The program is being piloted in Arizona school districts, with expansion planned to additional states next year. The long-term vision is every student in this country taking U.S. history using Land of Hope instead of whatever watered-down, racial-guilt-driven alternative their district currently assigns. It is also worth connecting this effort to what is already happening in Florida with the Civics Seal of Excellence, proof that state-level recognition and national curriculum-building can reinforce each other.

Then there’s Constituting America, which has been in this fight for years, using contests, school speaking programs, and multimedia projects to get students engaged with the founding documents in a way a worksheet never will. Their Constitution Day programming turns September 17 into more than a date nobody remembers, giving classrooms actual tools, essay studies, and speaking events built around the document itself. If a school is doing nothing meaningful for Constitution Day, that is on the adults in the building, not the resources available to them. Now there is no excuse: Constituting America has already done the work.

Turning Point USA has also moved into this space in a real way, building out civics-focused educational content through Turning Point Education. Turning Point Education sells K-12 curriculum kits built around the founding documents: a Jr Patriots kit for kindergarten through third grade, a Constitution Kit for third through sixth grade, and an Election Kit that walks younger students through how the U.S. election process actually works. For older students, there is a Patriots Catechism, fifty-two questions every American ought to be able to answer, running from fifth grade all the way up through adulthood. They have also partnered with historian Bill Federer on a video series called How We Got Here, tracing the historical roots of the issues shaping our lives today.

Finally, my personal favorite, Young America’s Foundation. I have had the privilege of presenting with YAF for their middle school programming up at the beautiful Reagan Ranch in Santa Barbara, California.  I can tell you firsthand that these kids are hungry for exactly this kind of content. YAF runs weekend programs for both teens and middle schoolers where civics is woven into most presentations. They participate in activities and presentations about liberty, free enterprise, and what it actually means to be a self-governing citizen. Watching a room full of twelve-year-olds get genuinely excited about the separation of powers is not something you easily forget.

The Department of Education, alongside Turning Point USA, the Heritage Foundation, Hillsdale College, PragerU, and more than forty other national and state groups, launched the America 250 Civics Education Coalition on Constitution Day 2025 to coordinate exactly this kind of programming heading into the anniversary. Constituting America has built its own America 250 hub around the same milestone, using its essay studies and school speaking program to walk students through the founding story.

For years, the conservative conversation about education in this country has been almost entirely defensive: block this curriculum, fight that school board, expose this lesson plan. All necessary work, and I have done plenty of it myself. But defense does not build anything. What I love about all these nonprofits working to build civics education in America is that we are going on offense. Heritage, Constituting America, TPUSA, YAF, PragerU – they are not just complaining that kids do not know their own country. They are building the textbooks, the tests, the shows, and the weekends that fix it.

Source: https://capitalresearch.org/article/conservative-nonprofits-are-making-american-civics-great-again/