The National Constitution Center and the Center for Civic Education, national civics organizations based, respectively, in Philadelphia and Los Angeles, have been named the joint recipients of the 2025 Leonore Annenberg Institute for Civics Award by the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.
Their collaborative winning proposal, “Teaching250: Civics Renewal for America’s 250th and Beyond,” will gather some of the nation’s leading civic education organizations that are partners in the Civics Renewal Network (CRN) and outstanding teachers from across the United States to prepare them to teach about America’s 250th anniversary, and to collaborate to create high-quality nonpartisan educational resources that can benefit educators nationwide. The initiative was selected by a panel of judges involved in K-12 and college education for the Leonore Annenberg Institute for Civics (LAIC), a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC).
With the $200,000 award, the two organizations will convene a two-day professional learning symposium for 50-100 civics educators in early 2026 at the National Constitution Center. The participants will learn from noted constitutional scholars, examine educational resources from partners in the Civics Renewal Network, and engage in civil discourse around America250 content and themes. The teachers and CRN partners will weave together educational materials from CRN partners in order to create a Teaching250 Learning Suite, a collection of free, high-quality, easily accessible resources for educators that will be available on the CRN website.
“Collaborative civic education projects always multiply the positive impact for teachers and students, and productive partnerships are a foundation of LAIC’s mission. We are pleased to support this important initiative related to the America250 commemoration and celebration” said Andrea (Ang) Reidell, LAIC’s director of outreach and curriculum.
Teaching America’s 250th
Julie Silverbrook, vice president of civic education at the National Constitution Center, said the proposed project emerged from discussions with Donna Phillips, Ph.D., the president and chief executive officer of the Center for Civic Education.
“There was no large convening being organized specifically for the benefit of educators to teach the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence,” Silverbrook said. “Donna Phillips and I connected and discussed, at first, a professional development program, and then thought bigger about how we could leverage the excellent work of other CRN partners and the creative, entrepreneurial genius that so many teachers have to stitch together many outstanding resources to create the most meaningful experiences for their students and a stellar set of collaborative resources.”
Phillips said that the project aims to create civics, social studies, and historical teaching materials that will be relevant for America’s 250th and for years to come. Teachers in this program might examine the language of the Declaration of Independence and ask, for example, what is meant in the beginning of the second paragraph: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
What did it mean when it was written? And what does it mean today? “Through inquiry, we can take a question into any classroom, and the students and teachers in that class will take it up in a way that makes sense for their class, their school, their state. So, we can ask, how well have we lived up to the ideal of ‘all men are created equal’? And the way that gets explored will look different in every classroom.”
The Leonore Annenberg Institute for Civics Award
The “Teaching250: Civics Renewal for America’s 250th and Beyond” project was selected from proposals submitted by some of the 46 partners in the Civics Renewal Network, a consortium of nonprofit, nonpartisan organizations dedicated to strengthening civic life in the United States. CRN was founded as a project of the Leonore Annenberg Institute for Civics, and this award aims to help an exemplary project that would improve civics education in the nation’s elementary, secondary, or high school classrooms. The competition is open to partner organizations in the Civics Renewal Network.
The first LAIC Award was presented in 2019 to the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate to create resources to help 8th through 12th grade teachers conduct productive civic conversations on difficult issues. Past winners also include Street Law, in 2021, to develop a curriculum for middle and high school students on the rule of law; the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, in 2022, to create a high school program on the role of the states in determining and protecting voting rights; Retro Report, in 2023, to create educational videos and curriculum to accompany the debut of the PBS civics docuseries Citizen Nation; and the Center for Civic Education in 2024 to create and promote civil discourse and civic engagement among underserved rural and tribal communities throughout the United States.
About the honorees
The National Constitution Center in Philadelphia brings together people of all ages and perspectives, across America and around the world, to learn about, debate, and celebrate the greatest vision of human freedom in history, the U.S. Constitution. A private, nonprofit organization, the Center serves as America’s leading platform for constitutional education and debate, fulfilling its congressional charter “to disseminate information about the U.S. Constitution on a nonpartisan basis.” For more information, call 215-409-6700 or visit constitutioncenter.org.
The Center for Civic Education, founded in 1965, and home of flagship programs “We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution,” and “Project Citizen: Community Engagement in Public Policy,” has served 50 million students and 440,000 educators, and describes its mission as “promoting an enlightened and responsible citizenry committed to democratic principles and actively engaged in the practice of democracy, serving K-12 students, their teachers, and adults.”
