Study Launched to Evaluate the Efficacy of”Talking About Local Current and Contested Issues in Schools”

Street Law, Inc. is excited to announce that the University of Southern California (USC) has received an award from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences to study the efficacy of our Talking About Local Current and Contested Issues in Schools (TALCCS) program. 

Overview of TALCCS

Street Law launched TALCCS in 2022 to build the capacity of districts, schools, and social studies educators to engage their students in meaningful discussions of contested public issues. This initiative represents a critical step towards bridging divides in the United States. Currently, TALCCS is active in 70% of Maryland school districts and three other states.

TALCCS was designed to address a crucial gap in educational practice by equipping teachers with the tools and strategies needed to facilitate student discussions on contested public issues. These skills are essential for developing students’ abilities to engage in productive discourse both in the classroom and in their broader communities.

The USC Study

Researchers at USC’s Center for Applied Research in Education (CARE) will now evaluate the effectiveness of TALCCS as a method for preparing students for the rights and responsibilities of engaged citizenship, including the ability to engage in productive discussion and deliberation. The study will comprehensively assess TALCSS’ impact, implementation, costs, and cost-effectiveness.

The research study will involve approximately 240 middle and high school social studies teachers across 80 schools in three California school districts. Using a multi-site, cluster randomized controlled trial, the researchers aim to estimate TALCCS’ impacts on targeted student outcomes and describe instructional differences between treatment and control classrooms.

Street Law, Inc. will play a pivotal role in the project by training TALCCS “teacher leaders” who will, in turn, serve as TALCCS instructors to peers within their districts. The project will leverage Street Law’s curricular resources for teaching about contested issues, which are designed around proven strategies such as Deliberation, Socratic Seminars, and Take-a-Stand.

Dr. Anna Rosefsky Saavedra, Principal Investigator of the study from USC, emphasizes the importance of this initiative: “Now more than ever, schools need to be places where students are able to productively and respectfully discuss multiple perspectives about potentially contested topics. Teachers need support to help them facilitate these types of discussions. Research is needed to identify which programs successfully offer this support and build student skills.”

Saavedra and her team hope that the study results will contribute to improving and increasing support for teachers, ultimately equipping them to better develop their students’ abilities to engage in productive discussions and deliberations with peers and others.

For a more detailed description of the project, including the research design and methodology, please visit the Institute of Education Sciences.