Events around the world increasingly demand informed, engaged, critical thinkers and problem solvers – knowledge and skills found in the teaching of the civics, economics, geography, history, psychology, sociology, philosophy and the humanities.

Schools in affluent communities with high test scores are more likely to provide students with a rigorous, well-rounded curriculum. But all too many schools have abandoned the social studies, producing an unprepared citizenry entering the adult world. This is illustrated by the results of the last National Assessment of Educational Progress exam in history and civics, administered in 2010. It showed that fewer than one-quarter of fourth, eighth and twelfth graders demonstrated minimal proficiency in the concepts and facts that form the basis of our American democracy.

Fortunately, we know what to do, and Congress, the states and schools now have the opportunity to do it. Schools need to reinstate innovative approaches to teaching and engaging students in learning about their communities, their country, and the world. To aid in this, the federal government should make available to schools and school districts, a menu of validated, effective approaches to teaching the social studies. That way, teachers and schools can select the model that best meets the needs of their students and the communities in which they live.

How do we make these evidence-based options widely available to schools? Two pieces of legislation pending in Congress this year could go a long way to making this happen.

As part of ESEA Reauthorization, Congress and the President can and should provide competitive grants that support the development and dissemination of innovative, engaging approaches to teaching social studies that includes history, civics, geography, and economics. Republican Senator Mike Enzi said it best in 2011, when he drafted a legislative provision providing that "Grants shall be made to support developing, implementing, evaluating, and disseminating for voluntary school use innovative, research-based approaches to civic learning, which may include hands-on civic engagement activities, for low-income elementary school and secondary school students, that demonstrate innovation, scalability, accountability, and a focus on underserved populations."

The appropriations process in Congress funds programs in current law. Even without changes to No Child Left Behind, the appropriations committee has the ability to provide funds to the Department of Education, and the Department of Education has the ability to award, competitive grants to non-profits to improve the teaching of the social studies through the Fund for the Improvement of Education.

Ken Burns, American documentarian, emphasized the critical need for social studies education in Boston last fall, when he said, "(Civics) is actually how things work, how things stick together. No amount of STEM or no amount of STEAM will work unless you have given the operator’s manual. In a democracy that is called CIVICS and we need to bring it back!”

National Council for the Social Studies and the Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools call on Congress to heed this cry. You have two opportunities to give teachers and schools the tools they need to improve teaching of social studies in our democracy. Don't let these opportunities pass another generation of students by.