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Students from Taft Oil Technology Academy came to Sacramento to meet with state representatives and share their perspectives on the petroleum industry.

The high schoolers came from an oil community in the Central Valley, where state policy is not an abstraction. It is a paycheck, a family business, a tax base, a way of life. They had studied jobs and California’s move toward a greener economy. They wanted lawmakers to understand what those decisions can feel like in Kern County, which produces nearly three-quarters of California’s oil and gas. 

Then democracy got messy.

Some representatives were unavailable. Staff handled parts of the visit. The students did not get the civic movie version of government.

They got something better: a real lesson.

That is why California should keep funding the California Serves Grant. The grant helps schools build real-world civic learning opportunities and expand student access to the State Seal of Civic Engagement, a diploma seal recognizing high school students who demonstrate civic excellence. On paper, the seal can sound like another add-on. In practice, when done well, it can help schools build the civic learning infrastructure our democracy needs.

To earn the seal, students must meet five statewide criteria, including demonstrating civic knowledge and participating in an informed civic engagement project in which they investigate a real-world problem, consider varied responses, take action, and reflect. No specific civics course is required statewide, though districts may add local criteria. 

In our report, Expanding Access: CA State Seal of Civic Engagement, we found that the number of students earning the seal grew from 5,310 in 2020–21 to 23,040 in 2024–25. That growth matters, but access remains uneven. Only about 1.6% of eligible students earned the seal in 2024–25, fewer than one in five eligible schools awarded it, and five counties accounted for roughly 71% of all seals awarded statewide.

The California Serves Grant appears to be one practical way to close those gaps. In the first-cohort analysis of awardees from 2022-23, participating local education agencies across 10 counties increased the number of students receiving the seal by 142% in 2024-25, compared with approximately 47% statewide. Six of the 10 agencies in our analysis awarded seals for the first time during the grant period. 

Kern County offers a vivid example. After initial grant-funded work, its count grew from 92 students in 2023-24 to 982 the next year. A representative from the Kern County Office of Education noted that they anticipate more than 1,000 student seals this school year. 

We should be cautious here. One cohort does not prove everything. Seal counts do not measure the full depth of student civic learning. Still, the pattern suggests something important: When schools receive targeted funding, more students get access to civic learning opportunities.

The grant works, in part, because it pays for the adult work that people rarely notice. That means professional learning, coordination time, developing application systems, registrar training and student transcript coding. It sounds bureaucratic. It is also essential.

One Kern County leader, Zack Safi, put it plainly: if the data are not logged, “it’s like it didn’t happen.” A student may visit the Capitol, organize a mock election, discuss housing policy or work on a community garden. Without a school system that recognizes and records these efforts, student achievements can slip through the cracks.

Good civic education needs infrastructure. It also requires equitable access.

Too often, civic opportunities reach students already in Advanced Placement courses, student government, debate or honors programs. The California Serves Grant appears to push against that pattern. Students entered civic learning through government, economics, U.S. history, alternative education, migrant education, environmental science pathways, mock elections and entrepreneurship courses. 

Civic talent is not limited to students with the most polished resumes.

Some readers may worry that “civic engagement” is a softer phrase for political persuasion. That concern deserves respect. Schools should not tell students what to think about public issues.

But avoiding civic engagement does not make schools neutral. It leaves students to figure out public life on their own, often through social media. A better approach is to teach students how to investigate issues, weigh evidence, listen to different perspectives and reflect honestly on what happened.

California should continue the California Serves Grant and strengthen it. Policymakers should sustain funding, protect time for teacher and staff learning, target underserved regions and school types, and pay attention to unglamorous implementation details. Applications, data systems, transcript codes and review committees decide whether civic learning becomes a real opportunity or just another good idea.

As the nation celebrates its 250th anniversary, California has a choice. Civics can be a set of commemorative lessons or something students practice.

Taft Oil Tech students learned that democracy can be slow, unscripted and at times frustrating. Maybe that was the lesson they needed. More students deserve that chance.

Robert J. Medrano is a senior program director at Teach Democracy.

Jenifer Crawford is a professor of clinical education at USC Rossier School of Education.