Classroom Resources for this Election Season

by Mary Ellen Daneels, Lead Teacher Mentor

This week, marked the beginning of both the holiday shopping season and the official start of the midterm election season. As Shawn stated in an earlier blog, less than a week remains for candidates representing established parties in Illinois to file their petitions for the March primaries.

While resources for presidential elections are plentiful, teachers are often left scrambling for midterm election materials to engage their students. There are a number of tools from civic organizations and educational partners that provide a foundation for involving students in the 2018 election season. Here is a list to start with.

• The Center for Information and Research for Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) has data and analysis relating to youth voting trends, suffrage laws and what works in getting out the youth vote.
• The Illinois State Board of Elections has a page where classrooms can follow who has filed petitions to run for office.
• OpenSecrets.org is a website that allows students to track the spending of federal candidates as well as who is contributing to their campaigns.
• The Illinois Campaign for Political Reform is a non-partisan organization that provides timely information about the gubernatorial “battle of the billionaires” as well as other statewide races. In addition, the organization sponsors the Illinois Voter Project to profile how Illinois votes per demographic information.
• The Youth Leadership Initiative from the University of Virginia provides lesson plans and mock election resources for teachers to use in the classroom.
• The Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale provides timely polling data about issues important to the Land of Lincoln.
• The Constitutional Rights Foundation- Chicago has lesson plans about current and controversial issues related to voting and elections such as lowering the voting age to 16 as well as materials to engage in simulations of democratic processes.
• Facing History and Ourselves has a catalog of materials to provide background information about the expansion of suffrage.
• The Mikva Challenge proves that, “democracy is a verb” with their Elections in Action program that connects students with timely resources and opportunities for service learning.
• There is curriculum related to Voting Rights provided by icivics.org.
• The League of Women Voters-Illinois has resources related to election education. Consider subscribing to your local chapter’s newsletter for information about local candidate forums.
• Dr. Diana Hess, the Dean of the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, penned an article in Social Education titled, “Should Schools Teach Students to Vote? YES!” to help teachers make the case for voter education in the classroom.

We hope this list helps support your efforts to engage your students in the upcoming election season. What materials are you using that are NOT listed above? Please share in the comment section below. Together, we can prepare students for college, career and civic life.