Winchester, Va.
Are all politics local? The adage fits here in Michael Siraguse鈥檚 two AP Government classes, where students are peppering their teacher with post-midterm questions about the city council race鈥攏ot the so-called 鈥渂lue wave.鈥�
They鈥檙e trying to make sense of election data from the Virginia Department of Elections from the governor鈥檚 race on down, handily pulled up on Siraguse鈥檚 laptop at John Handley High school. This contest in particular catches their attention: In the race for the council鈥檚 Fourth Ward seat, Judy McKiernan鈥攖he wife of a teacher down the hall from Siraguse鈥攅ked out a win by just three votes. And students have a lot of questions about what happens next.
What happens if the two outstanding provisional ballots close the gap even further? Will the race trigger a recount? What will McKiernan do to prepare for assuming office?
There probably will be a recount since the state will pay for it, Siraguse points out. And if McKiernan is indeed the winner, she鈥檒l definitely get an orientation to the job from other city officials.
Midterm elections stand to reshape local politics perhaps to an even greater degree than national ones, including in this city of 28,000 people. And as this example indicates, local connections鈥攊ncluding those of students and teachers鈥攃an make the difference between a win and a loss.
And yet, civics education experts say, Siraguse鈥檚 focus on the midterms is probably not all that common across the country.
鈥淲e have a sort of educational and societal culture with an obsession with presidential elections,鈥� said Joseph Kahne, a professor of education policy and politics at the University of California, Riverside. 鈥淚 think it鈥檚 a big missed opportunity, especially with respect to engaging young people. They鈥檙e much more likely to begin to connect with and see direct feedback on things that happen locally.鈥�
Catching a 鈥楥ivic Moment鈥�
The challenges to teaching a good midterm election lesson are legion. Voter participation rates tend to fall drastically in the midterms, compared to the general election, and students tend come in with even less background knowledge about the contests and why they matter than they do about presidential elections.
And inevitably, teachers say, timing of the election can be awkward.
鈥淭he trouble with teaching about voting is that it comes so quick in the school year. You鈥檝e just got them for a month and a half, and then you鈥檙e in the middle of this civic moment,鈥� said , a teacher at the Institute of Civics, a public high school in Syracuse, N.Y.
Even the AP Government course outline saves elections and political culture until the end of the course, which means that teachers have to rearrange the order of the units if they want to focus on the elections, or otherwise work election themes into their lessons.
That鈥檚 what Michael Siraguse has done in preparation for yesterday鈥檚 lesson.
For the past month, he鈥檚 focused on familiarizing students with the broad outlines of political ideologies鈥攃onservative and liberal positions on free markets, social issues, welfare, and the military. Then he鈥檚 used daily news stories on local and state elections to get students thinking about how candidates and their platforms line up with some of the ideologies students are talking about.
The students have also taken a short online quiz that purportedly gives them a sense of where they fall on the ideological spectrum. (Those results are private, but students are free to discuss them.)
There鈥檚 evidence, civics education officials affirm, that many young people approaching voting age are only starting to figure out where they stand politically. Siraguse hopes that the ongoing discussions in his course will, in effect, give students the tools to start linking the political ideologies to the themes that will come later in the course: the crafting of the federal budget, political parties, and, of course, elections.
鈥淪ome students know exactly what they believe and why they believe it. Others are extraordinarily confused, and those are the ones I can reach out to and connect with,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey are starting to push their own intellectual boundaries, and figure out where they fit in.鈥�
Open Discussions
Surprisingly, in the midterm election鈥檚 aftermath, students here have less to say about Donald Trump and the overall political climate. Most, though, give Siraguse high marks for establishing a classroom where they feel free to share divergent opinions.
If students are still trying to pinpoint exactly how they prioritize the ideological values they鈥檝e been discussing, the midterms have definitely illuminated a phenomenon nearly all have already grown weary of: political advertising, especially attack ads.
Here in Winchester, those appeared mainly on the U.S. House of Representatives race for Virginia鈥檚 10th District, which was seen as a national bellwether because Barbara Comstock, the Republican incumbent, shared Trump鈥檚 views on the economy and immigration. (She was defeated by Democrat Jennifer Wexton, turning the district blue for the first time in nearly four decades.)
The contest also generated eye-popping campaign donations on either side, much of it plowed into social media ads that students encountered every time they logged onto YouTube and Instagram.
鈥淚t鈥檚 like a high school girl fight鈥攖hat鈥檚 what the ads are like. They鈥檙e awful,鈥� said senior Ella Ingham. 鈥淭here was nothing really positive out there, and so little information I couldn鈥檛 form an opinion about anything.鈥�
There鈥檚 some burgeoning cynicism, too, even among these young citizens.
鈥淚t鈥檚 almost like watching a reality TV show. Each of the parties are romanticized into something they鈥檙e not,鈥� said Nick Mauck. 鈥淚 feel like people are putting politicians above themselves, but it should be politicians who put us above them.鈥�
Voter Adrenaline
Does hitting the importance of the midterms hard matter for voting? Siraguse鈥檚 own anecdotal data suggests it is. He鈥檚 helped register about 1,000 of his students over the past decade. Many of them credit his teaching, too.
鈥淗e really drives the point home and gets really into detail and depth, where other teachers just read from the textbook,鈥� said Jaime Trejo-Angeles, one of four first-time voters in Siraguse鈥檚 classes.
Youths nationwide are showing similar signs of enthusiasm. The Education Week Research Center鈥檚 own nationally representative poll, conducted in September with 18- and 19-year-olds who were potential first-time voters, found that 60 percent of them planned to vote this week. And early results from an ABC News exit poll on Tuesday suggest that many young voters followed through. It projected that young people ages 18 to 29 made up 13 percent of the overall electorate this midterm, up from 11 percent in 2014.
So, was the experience of ticking the box anti-climatic for Trejo-Angeles?
鈥淣o way. I had a sense of adrenaline just walking into there,鈥� he said.
After the work of debriefing all the midterm election data, students are happy to move on to their daily discussion of other news articles. Only it鈥檚 a bit of bait-and-switch, because one of the first articles Siraguse puts up is an analysis of whom the Democrats will run against Trump in 2020. (The early favorite, it appears, is Texas鈥� Beto O鈥橰ourke, who lost his bid this week to unseat Republican Senator Ted Cruz.)
69传媒 groan a little, and Siraguse smiles.
鈥淟iterally today we have to start talking about the 2020 election. We don鈥檛 even get a day to enjoy election results 鈥� we have to start thinking about 2020,鈥� he says, and then adds, teasingly: 鈥淧lease don鈥檛 vote for Kanye.鈥�
