Proposed Bill Says PA High School Students Would Need To Pass Civics Test To Graduate

"Alarming decline in civics knowledge among young Americans," was the motivation for her new proposal, says Rep. Karen Boback, Republican from Luzerne.

The test Boback is proposing would include questions from the US citizenship exam issued by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

High School students would be allowed to take the test as many times as is necessary to attain a passing grade, according to a March 24 memo Boback wrote to her fellow legislators when seeking co-sponsors for her bill.

This bill would be in-addition to a 2017 state law that already requires schools to administer their own locally designed civics test. Currently, that test does not require a passing grade, but Boback's would.

Her proposal would require students in grades 7-12 to take the test, and receive a score of at least 70 percent in order to graduate.

School districts would be required to put together lesson plans "dedicated to teaching of the importance and workings of the election process as it pertains to local, state, and federal election," according to her proposal. 

"Considering the events of this past election cycle and the critical importance of free and fair elections to our democratic process, I believe it is essential to build upon, " the 2017 law, Boback wrote in the memo.

"It is my hope to ensure that students have at least a basic knowledge and understanding of civics and government in order to prepare and encourage them to be responsibly engaged citizens, and we believe that this legislation is an important and necessary step towards achieving this objective," Boback wrote to her colleagues.

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