Hawai‘i lawmakers are renewing efforts to help students identify fake news and improve their understanding of how the government works.
One proposal calls for schools to have programs to combat misinformation, disinformation and hate speech.
Another would fund two full-time civic education teachers within the state Department of Education.
A third would require the Capitol's Public Access Room to create an outreach and engagement program for the DOE and the University of Hawaiʻi.
State Rep. Amy Perruso said she will introduce the bills along with other lawmakers. She underscored that this topic has been a concern for a while.
“For me, a lot is at stake because we already run the risk of people not being able to see past half-truths, misinformation and to critically analyze what's actually happening around power and politics,” she said. “Not just in Hawai‘i but on a broader scale.”
Measures on this issue failed during the last legislative session.
The renewed efforts come after the November elections and the mock statewide youth elections.
Kids Voting Hawaiʻi recently revealed results that show that Donald Trump received more votes than Kamala Harris. However, students widely voted for Democrats in other races and leaned more progressive in their ballot questions.
Punahou School junior Sophia Howell said some students might have voted based on name recognition and what they’ve seen on social media.
“When I think back to myself, 2016, I was in the third grade,” she said. “So the media has been dominated ever since then by Donald Trump, whereas Kamala Harris came into the race 100 days before the election. In comparison, that’s not that much time between her and the election.”
“The second reason is his involvement in non-traditional media spaces,” she continued. “One of his campaign strategies was to reach out to young people via podcast, via social media, and I think he did that really effectively. So young people may have just had more access to his stances on issues and aligned with his views.”
Civic education in the modern technology era
Brooke Nasser, an English and journalism teacher at Kalani High School, underscored that society lives in a tech-dependent age. When she recently polled two classes, her students couldn't give her the definition of civic engagement.
“You can't introduce technology to students and not also instruct them on digital and media literacy,” she said. “The breadth and the scope of media literacy instruction depends on the school and the teacher and the subject so there's no universal directive on how that instruction is delivered.”
She said it varies across schools in terms of how much media literacy and civic education is taught to students.
“When students understand bias or misinformation or disinformation, and when they have the skill to recognize it, they become naturally more civically engaged,” she said. “They want to be informed. They want facts.
“They can't vote yet, but they understand that they can debate issues, that they can volunteer, that their time and energy can be volunteered to causes they care about,” she continued.
The Pew Research Center found that 4 out of 10 young adults get their news from TikTok.
Donna Phillips, president and CEO of the California-based Center for Civic Education, named at least six states that require news literacy standards in their instruction.
“We've had several decades of federal policies that have de-prioritized social studies and civics in history,” she said. “I think we see the negative outcomes of that when we start to see national results on the NAEP assessment of people who don't know what our three branches are and why we should vote.”
The National Assessment of Education Progress is a nationwide report card that measures knowledge on a subject area.
According to the 2022 NAEP civics assessment, only 49% of responding students across the country said they have a class focused on civics or the U.S. government.
Phillips said states like Arizona, California, New York, and Virginia have civic seals for diplomas. Schools can recognize high school graduates who have demonstrated an understanding of civic knowledge and participation. Phillips said Hawaiʻi is working on getting its seal.
She emphasized that teaching students civic education and news literacy in elementary school is important.
“If we're just reaching them by the time they're already teenagers, and they haven't had good civic education earlier, then it's a really hard sell,” she said.
