While rough storms and flooding took over parts of the Commonwealth on April 5th, some Kentuckians braved the wind and rain to discuss a concern spreading almost as rapidly around the state: the lack of civic education in Kentucky schools.

Since January, the Kentucky Student Voice Team (KSVT) has been leading the fight to improve the educational landscape with their landmark lawsuit against the state. The organization has drawn inspiration from the 1989 Rose v. Council for Better Education case, which asserted that all Kentucky students have the right to an equitable and adequate education and paved the way for some of the most significant educational reforms of the time. But now, KSVT is arguing that the legacy of the Rose case has wilted. Student plaintiffs are calling out the failures of the state to fulfill its constitutional duty, pointing to specific issues that are “...undermining the quality of education across the Commonwealth,” said KSVT in their first lawsuit press release. 

Among these issues highlighted in the case is the current state of civics education. The Rose ruling highlighted the importance of civics education in public schools, leading to sweeping reforms at the time of the case. However, the reforms have not held up the test of time for one of a public school’s most crucial duties. Beyond the Ballot: The State of Civic Education in Kentucky, a recent study by KSVT’s research team, found that close to 40% of the over 2,300 students surveyed doubted their schools’ ability to prepare them for active citizenship. While there is no single direct cause of insufficient civic education, KSVT has cited uneven access across underserved school districts, lack of representation for marginalized students, and an absence of proper educational civics requirements as factors injuring civics education in Kentucky.

To get a deeper understanding of the problems and solutions regarding Kentucky’s civic education, KSVT held a youth-led public hearing at the Carnegie Center in Lexington on April 5th. During the hearing, KSVT student members acted as examiners for four civic education expert witnesses: Fayette County Public Schools teacher Sherri McPherson, chair of the Kentucky Civic Education Coalition Carly Muetterties, founder and executive director of CivicLex Richard Young, and director of Student Y Vontella Thomas. The examiners listened to their testimonies as well as asked questions to clarify or expand on their experiences as civics educators in and out of the public school system. Alongside other KSVT members, educators, students, parents, and other supporters attended the event. 

“I've been an advocate for civic education for six, seven years, and a lot of it was just reflecting upon my own practice as a teacher and thinking about what we were doing right, but what we weren't doing to support all students, not just students whose parents encouraged them to be engaged, but every student,” said Muetterties, who brought attention to the inequities within the school system when implementing civics education through her testimony. 

For over an hour and a half, witnesses spoke about their perspectives on civics education in Kentucky, sharing common themes of the positive impact that civics education can have on youth and the issue of limited resources for teachers stifling the potential for more robust civic education. McPherson expanded on her time as an English teacher and Student Y advisor at Lafayette High School, facilitating educational civic experiences through the Kentucky YMCA. and how she realized that teachers weren’t giving the opportunities students needed to develop as civically minded people. 

“We have to save ourselves. We have to have these conversations. We have to make a change. Thankfully, you guys are interested. Young people are interested, because I really feel like that's what's going to be the change. That's what's going to turn things around for us,” McPherson told The New Edu. 

Outside of the public school system, Thomas focuses on promoting civic engagement through education and engagement beyond the classroom. She noted times when she helped register college students to vote and watched as many students had no idea what political party they aligned with, showing a clear need for stronger civic education. 

“There's so much that college students don't know, and by the time you get to college, you're getting to select your curriculum, right? Like, if you never wanted to take another social studies class, by the time you get to college, you won't have to. So, making sure that students are getting those things that I'm seeing our college students don't have is why I'm here,” explained Thomas. 

During the litigation case, KSVT has put an emphasis on being solutions-oriented, shedding light on what isn’t working and ways Kentucky lawmakers can fix it. “We really wanted to stop hearing about everything that's going wrong in schools and negative experiences people are having, and think ‘okay, how do we fix this?’ And hear from experts what is going well in schools, and how can we scale that to a statewide level in terms of policy and in terms of resources?” Michelle Zheng, a KSVT student examiner, said.

The expert witnesses advocated for a more hands-on approach to civic education, rather than the 100-question civic exam Kentucky students are required to pass to graduate. They also called on legislators to prioritize civics when it comes to educational funding. “We're so tired of teachers being blamed for everything. Teachers want to do good, but their hands are tied and they're not given the resources,” asserted Muetterties. In the end, all witnesses showed the role of civics in, as explained by Young during the hearing, “...not just to prepare our students to participate in democracy, but to build and maintain our democracy.”

This piece is part of Beyond the Ballot: Student stories of civic engagement, a collaborative journalistic package by KSVT’s storytelling team. This series aims to tell the complex stories of how students in our Commonwealth are engaging with civics inside and outside of the classroom.

Header image: KSVT Policy Co-Coordinator Ivy Litton speaking during the Rose Revival Public Hearing alongside Michelle Zheng, Georgie Farmer, and Javontae Cranmo. Photo taken at the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning on April 5th, 2025, by Eva Alcaraz-Monje.