A program of the LeRoy Collins Center for Public Policy at Florida State University has provided hundreds of Florida social studies teachers with a better understanding of voting and elections.
The Florida Center for Voting, Elections and Civic Education, a part of the Collins Center, has expanded a program that began in the summer of 2001 with 160 teachers attending a four-day workshop at FSU taught by faculty from its political science department. The expanded program, called "Teaching Teachers to Teach about Voting and Elections," exported these professional development workshops during the spring and summer of 2002 to several Florida universities that developed and offered their own training workshops to an additional 400 American government and civics teachers statewide.
"This program was more than a 'get out the vote' campaign, because why would anyone want to get out an uninformed, uneducated voter?" said program director Jim Mau, who also is a professor of sociology and the executive director of Academic Planning and Program Review at Florida International University. "It is informed citizens who participate, and through their participation, democracy is strengthened."
The program's goal was to promote a more highly informed level of participation in the political process by giving civics teachers a better understanding of political processes and current events.
"The result of giving 560 people a better understanding of voting and elections would be important on its own, but because they are teachers there is a multiplier effect," Mau said. "Each of those teachers has an impact on a classroom full of students. They may affect as many as 60 to 100 kids."
The impetus for the program originally came from the 2000 presidential election, in which Florida's electorate played a pivotal role. Mau also was intrigued by a study that showed a declining interest in public affairs in the general population, especially among the nation's youth. He said even though young people seem to be showing an increased interest in volunteer activities, they don't seem to be participating in the political process.
Mau, working with Collins Center Director Jim Apthorp, developed the idea to offer workshops to teachers that covered a multitude of election-related subjects, from new voting systems in various counties to new voting patterns and habits. The workshops would help promote a more informed and educated citizenry.
Each participating university recruited its own participants from its local school district and - so as not to limit the program's reach - from surrounding counties. For instance, the University of Florida's program reached out to teachers in seven counties.
The participating universities created their own workshops using program guidelines. Topics included "Political Parties in the U.S. and Florida," "Florida's Changing Demographic Profile - Implications for State Politics and Policy" and "Election Controversies in Southwest Florida." Presenters were diverse and included host-university faculty members, a former congressman, a former Orange County commissioner, a state senator and a local supervisor of elections.
"The main goal of the training was to enhance civics teachers' understanding of voting in the state of Florida so they can pass along to their students the very best and latest information," Apthorp said.
The program also created a Web site to help teachers stay up-to-date on new election laws and issues.
Saying that more people need to be better informed, Mau said he hopes to continue the training, perhaps as a prelude to the 2004 presidential elections.
"We got very good feedback from teachers. In fact, we had many more teachers who wanted to participate, but couldn't because of limited space," he said.
Mau cited one university that had been budgeted to train 55 teachers and had an additional 70 on a waiting list.
"I would hope we could go back and do another round of 400 teachers, and if we could train 1,000 teachers, that would be even better."
The program was sponsored by the Florida Department of Education, the Broad Foundation and the St. Petersburg Times Publishing Co. Mau worked on the project at the Collins Center while at FSU on sabbatical leave from FIU.
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