Teachers can’t hold back on civic lessons

As students across Illinois return to school and the U.S. approaches its 250th anniversary, we should ask: Are we preparing the next generation to understand and sustain civic life?

Illinois has taken promising steps. Civics is now required in both middle and high school, and the state’s updated social science standards promote inquiry and inclusion. New resources from the State Board of Education aim to support these efforts.

But even the best frameworks falter without support, and a new national report from the Sandra Day O’Connor Institute reveals a troubling gap between policy and practice.

Based on original survey data, the report — “Why Are Teachers Uncomfortable Teaching Civics?” — finds that nearly 80% of civics teachers across the country say they’ve self-censored classroom content. Almost 86% cite fear of controversy as a barrier to teaching civics at all.

These aren’t uncommitted educators. They’re professionals navigating inadequate training, vague guidance and little institutional backing. Some avoid current events. Others sidestep constitutional issues. Either way, students lose opportunities to wrestle with the ideas that animate civic life.

This matters in Illinois, where civics classrooms serve students from urban, rural and suburban communities. Without proper support, we miss a chance to foster civic connection across difference.

Training remains a key issue. A 2020 national study found that over a quarter of social studies teachers received no training in civics instruction. Few were taught how to guide students through controversial issues, yet they teach such issues daily.

Illinois’ standards encourage inquiry and deliberation. But for that vision to thrive, educators need deep civic knowledge, tools for leading inclusive discussions and the trust their schools will support them when challenges arise.

In our survey, fewer than 15% of civics teachers said their district offered clear guidance on what could be taught. One described being “hyper aware” of parent reactions. Another said she had to “tiptoe” around whole topics.

Illinois’ students deserve more. They deserve civics that prepares them to engage seriously with democracy. If we want young people to strengthen civic life, we must equip their teachers to lead it.

Liam Julian, vice president, programs and public policy, Sandra Day O’Connor Institute

Ramp up support for domestic violence survivors

Less than two weeks ago, two litigants were detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at the Cook County’s domestic violence courthouse.

The Trump administration argues that increased immigration enforcement will bring crime down in Democratic-governed cities. This vengeful and destructive plan will not only fail to achieve its ostensible purpose of reducing crime but also make Chicago dramatically less safe for immigrant survivors.

Consider the level of desperation and fear that would motivate a person to seek a court order forbidding contact from a family member. Now top that with the terrifying prospect that in the process of going to court, they might get arrested, detained or deported.

The result is an impossible calculus for survivors: The institutions meant to protect them become danger zones, and staying quiet becomes a safer option than seeking help.

This dilemma is not new for survivors — the justice system is a game of roulette, where they hope they get a “good” judge or a “good” detective who will take their case seriously.

But increased ICE raids are a recipe for further silencing already terrified survivors, giving them nowhere to go and no one to call without risking their safety and freedom.

There is much city officials can do to change this reality. Survivor leaders, particularly from immigrant communities, have been asking for years for the city to fund community-based, survivor-led peer support programs.

These programs allow for survivors to be trained as credible messengers, aiding their friends, family and neighbors in navigating trusted, community-based resources, instead of having to go to police stations and courthouses where their safety is far from assured.

In addressing issues like gun and community violence, city government and its civic partners have invested boldly in community-based prevention strategies like violence interrupter programs.

By contrast, gender-based violence funding has almost exclusively been allocated to police interventions and direct services, strategies that are decades behind policy innovations to reduce gang and gun violence.

As elected officials strategize how to peacefully resist the Trump administration’s politically-motivated threats against our city, they also need to pursue a long-overdue change in how the city supports survivors in communities that have ample reason to fear calling the police or going to court.

Survivors have been pleading for solutions to gender-based violence that do not force them to rely on institutions they have little reason to trust. How much longer until lawmakers listen?

Sheerine Alemzadeh, co-director and co-founder, Healing to Action, Rogers Park

Speed cameras do work

Well, it has finally happened: The city of Chicago has installed so many speed cameras on so many streets that I have been forced to slow down. Not just slow down around the cameras, mind you, but everywhere.

For years, I have managed to mostly ignore Chicago speed limits by carefully memorizing the locations of cameras in my area and reducing my speed as I passed them. Sure, I’d make an occasional mistake, but such mistakes were rare, because there were only a few cameras to worry about.

But since March, when the city started installing 50 new cameras around town, my ability to keep track of them all has faltered. According to the Chicago Data Portal, there are currently around 200 speed cameras operating around town. I actually printed a list of the new locations to keep in my car.

But it’s no use. There are officially more cameras than I can keep track of.

What’s worse, my psychology has changed. Instead of feeling like speed cameras are a minor inconvenience easily avoided, I now assume the darned things are everywhere.

This should be great news, right? An old scofflaw like me has been forced to drive more safely.

There’s only one problem. This push for safety has brought along with it a lot of revenue over the years — revenue the city has come to rely on. And that revenue has been declining. According to the Illinois Policy Institute, Chicago’s speed cameras issued $90.9 million in tickets and fees to drivers in 2024, down $11.3 million from 2023.

Mayor Brandon Johnson, desperate enough for new revenue to reverse his explicit campaign promise, gave the OK to install 50 new cameras.

But if I’m any indication, this move may actually backfire. If drivers like me are too scared to speed anymore, we’re about to see a precipitous — and irreversible — decline in revenue.

There comes a point when there are enough cameras to effectively ensure if you are speeding anywhere in the city, you will be caught. Once that happens, drivers will just stop speeding and the revenue from all those cameras will be no more.

Until then, to my fellow scofflaws I say, we still have Lake Shore Drive.

David Daskal, West Ridge

Dangers of characterizing criticism of Israel as antisemitic

In reading about the Chicago Commission on Human Relations’ hearing on increased antisemitism, I was struck by two things.

First, the broad and ecumenical character of the participating organizational representatives suggest most interest groups take the problem seriously and want to contribute to a solution.

Second, there is a stark divide between those in the Jewish community who distinguish between anti-Jewish hatred and criticism of Israel’s war actions, and those who consider holding Israel to account a “fringe” tendency. The latter position strikes me as dangerous.

Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack was monstrous, as is its continued keeping and killing of Israeli hostages. Israel had and has every right to react forcefully.

But many experts, including Jewish and Israeli scholars, contend the country’s continued military onslaught has crossed the line into genocide. Perhaps one can plausibly argue that Israel has no choice strategically but to act heartlessly.

But to assert that criticisms of the most extreme wartime actions are “antisemitic” is equivalent to arguing that Israel can do no wrong, period; to disagree is an attack not just on the state but on the religion itself.

This verges on the assertion that deliberate starving of babies, killing of grandparents in droves and so on are in effect core religious tenets. This line of argument begs the question of how desirable such an understanding of a religion can be.

What will be the long-term effect on those choosing whether to adopt or to continue to actively practice, a faith if its sole sovereign nation and that nation’s loudest advocates, define the faith in such extreme terms?

Andrew S. Mine, Rogers Park

RFK Jr. is triggering

I am 79 years old, and I am mad and sad.. When I was 4 years old in 1950, I contracted polio, and the effects of the disease have been with me all my life. I just missed Drs. Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin’s vaccine discoveries later in the ’50s.

I am mad that Robert Kennedy Jr. is in a position today to spread his beliefs about vaccines. I suggest he speak to people in my age group to remind him of what it was like back then and how easy it is today to prevent children all over the world from contracting polio.

I am sad RFK is the son of Bobby Kennedy, who I campaigned for while I was in college in the 1960s. We all loved Bobby. He was our hero, a ray of hope for us university students. We did everything we could to help, mailings, passing out fliers, knocking on doors.

And then he was killed, just like his brother. We couldn’t believe it. It was as bad as if we lost a family member. I will never forget him.

RFK Jr. is nothing like his dad. So given my experiences and background, I hope people can understand my feelings.

Harriet Coleman, Skokie

When is the right time to address control?

I don’t understand why it was inappropriate to ask U.S. Rep. Randy Fine, R-Fla., who proposed legislation allowing weapons on college campuses as a state senator, if he still supports such legislation on the day Charlie Kirk and two high school students in Denver were shot on school grounds?

A reporter was suspended for asking this question.

Ted Case, Edgewater

Give peace a chance

We need a U.S. Department of Peace — not war — that can spread nonviolence and aid to all. This department could care for the common good everywhere, and our world would be a better place to live for everyone.

Joellen Sbrissa, La Grange Park

Phony protection

A big thank you to tough guys, Donald Trump and Tom Homan, for sending a team of armed and camouflaged U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to protect us all from that rogue flower vendor at 50th Street and Pulaski Road. I no longer need to worry about my allergies acting up should I drive past that corner. I feel so much safer (sniffle)!

David R. Inman, Edgebrook

Hide your dogs — and goats

I’m worried that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement might, on orders from Kristi Noem, come and shoot my dog and other people’s dogs like she shot hers (as well as a goat), because she didn’t know how to properly train the wirehair pointer.

Richard Orrico, Melrose Park

Confusion at the Supreme Court

Right-wing U.S. Supreme Court justices just ruled that federal agents can stop and detain a person solely based on race. Two years ago, they ruled a college cannot admit a person solely based on race. Heads I win, tails you lose.

Joel Ostrow, Deerfield