The Campaign has received funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to conduct an investigation of schools and districts that are meeting their historic civic mission to develop informed and engaged citizens.  Schools and districts that deliver high quality civic learning, employing many or all of the Civic Mission of Schools Report's quality civic learning practices will be studied.  A working group of Campaign Steering Committee members and others has been appointed to carry out this "Laboratory of Schools" work.

The working group is chaired by Molly McCloskey of First Amendment Schools.  Members include Carl Glickman of the University of Georgia, Terry Pickeral of the National Center for Learning and Citizenship at the Education Commission of the States, Todd Clark of The Constitutional Rights Foundation, Susan Griffin of the National Council for the Social Studies, and Sam Chaltain of the Five Freedoms Network.

The members of the working group will make site visits to the schools along with the state coordinator of the state campaign, and will draft a write-up detailing what the school is doing to meet its mission of fostering civic learning.  The schools will be provided with resources and technical assistance to continue to expand and improve their civic learning programs. 

The Laboratory of Schools project has the dual goals of identifying strategies for effective civic learning that schools can implement individually, and informing our work on state and national education policy, especially in the context of creating effective accountability mechanisms, closing the civic achievement gap, and promoting professional development.