Fewer than one third of people in the islands between the ages of 18 and 29 bothered to vote in the presidential election that pitted Hawaii native Barack Obama against Republican John McCain. It was by far the worst youth turnout in the country.

Such numbers got teachers wondering whether more young people would have capitalized on their democratic duty if they had gotten a more substantive dose of Civics 101 before becoming adults. Hawaii’s students, these teachers say, aren’t developing the tools they need to become engaged citizens. Namely, they aren’t informed enough about government, social issues and political affairs.

The risk is of “creating a generation of kids who are mediocre … who aren’t being pushed to think critically beyond just passing the test,” said Colleen Spring, a social studies teacher at Laie Elementary School who was recently named Hawaii History Teacher of the Year for 2013.

Spring implemented Hawaii’s only elementary school-level We the People program, which is a popular state and national high school competition in which students are tested on their knowledge about the Constitution.

In the broadest definition, civics is the study of the rights and duties of citizenship, which runs the gamut from government to current events. By informing students about their rights and responsibilities as citizens of the nation, civics could encourage young people to participate actively in their democracy.

Society, civic advocates say, can’t advance unless young people know how to take part in — and contribute to — it. For her part, Sen. Jill Tokuda, education committee chair, said she wouldn’t be where she is today if she hadn’t become involved with the Legislature — including serving as a non-voting student member on the education committee — as a teenager.

Social studies as a whole is required throughout Hawaii’s K-12 pipeline. But teachers say actual social studies instruction, particularly in the early years, is piecemeal at best. Hawaii doesn’t have a state-designed standardized social studies assessment, and while most elementary school education has a history component, strict state and federal education requirements that focus on math and reading leave teachers little time to actually teach civics, according to Spring.

In their later years, students have to take two courses in Hawaiian history — one in middle school and one in high school. They also have to take three additional social studies credits, a requirement that was nearly slashed in 2011 when Hawaii Department of Education considered reducing course prerequisites as a means of giving students more flexibility.

To the relief of many teachers, the requirement remained intact, as did the stipulation that every high school student take the DOE’s token civics class: Participation in a Democracy. (According to Tufts University’s center on civic education research, all 50 states and Washington, D.C., require some sort of civics instruction.)

Many schools also offer extracurricular civics programs such as Model United Nations and student government, in addition to the statewide student council. Officials say the DOE is also developing an array of civics initiatives, including a possible internship program at the Legislature.

But some teachers still question whether the state is adequately preparing kids to be contributing members of civil society, pointing to their limited awareness about the basics.

Michael Wooten, a Campbell High School teacher and former Civil Beat education columnist, recalled in one of his contributions how a student couldn’t even identify continents on a map, let alone distinguish between a state and country.

Meanwhile, Corey Rosenlee, a self-described activist who teaches a 40-student Participation in a Democracy class and other social studies courses at Campbell, says few of his students start the semester literate in current events and the basic tenets of politics and government.

To help engage them in civic affairs, he posts news clippings on Facebook for his students to discuss in class and he encourages them to debate heated issues, including same-sex marriage and abortion. He also spearheaded a massive “field trip” to the state Capitol last month in which 500 students rallied lawmakers to fund air conditioning for the state’s hottest classrooms.

“They saw that their participation was creating news,” Rosenlee said, adding that he plans to take students to the Capitol again next semester to teach them how to testify and show them how a bill becomes law. In social studies “you want them to be out of the classroom.”

And every year after class sessions about political parties and elections, Rosenlee brings voter registration forms to class and encourages every student to fill them out. He usually ends up convincing one in every four students to sign up.

‘Teaching to the Test’ at the Expense of Civics

Still, students rarely get as much as they could out of their high school civics course, Rosenlee said, in large part because there’s a dearth of civic education in kids’ early years that leaves them without a solid base.

Across the country, social studies and other “non-core” subjects such as art have increasingly taken a back seat to math and reading, with teachers largely blaming No Child Left Behind, an act of Congress that requires states to set rigorous standardized testing standards for schools in those two subjects. (These across-the-board testing expectations weren’t adjusted to meet the distinct needs of individual schools or students — a system that, according to nationally acclaimed teacher Rebecca Mieliwocki, has helped turn things around for struggling students but that encourages mediocrity among students who aren’t struggling.)

Under pressure to meet math and reading benchmarks, teachers are often forced to “pick and choose” what little else they have time to focus on, leaving other subjects on the chopping block, Spring said.

A 2006 study by the Center for Education Policy focused on the side effects of No Child Left Behind. It found that 71 percent of school districts across the country had reduced hours devoted to teaching non-core subjects to dedicate more time to math and reading.

“You’re lucky if you’re able to teach one period (of social studies) a week,” Spring said.

Teachers say students are more engaged and ultimately gain more from school when what they’re learning is relevant to the world around them. Beyond that, educators can easily — and perhaps more effectively — teach math and reading through subjects such as social studies, Spring said.

She hopes that the new Common Core language, arts and math standards — which are currently being rolled out at schools across the state and aim to develop more critical thinking and integrate real-world learning — give teachers more flexibility to provide proper social studies instruction.

For now, though, shifts in priorities have led to a decline in funding for social studies and civics programs, Spring said.

Congress has stopped appropriating funds for civics education, including the We the People program, which had its federal funding cut in 2011. That has left students spending most of their time organizing bake sales and car washes — or, sometimes, cleaning up trash at Aloha Stadium after football games — to raise their own money to travel to competitions.

The broad implications are clear to Spring. “If our society loses an understanding of why the constitution has been so effective at maintaining our strength as a country, why you should defend it, and when it’s justified to amend it … it can easily disintegrate in front of us,” she said.

Sen. Tokuda said innovative teacher-mentors such as Spring are critical to promoting democratic participation among young people in the absence of rigorous civics education. The senator also stressed the importance of senior projects, which currently are required only for students pursuing an honors diploma, and she suggested that the state consider expanding that program by requiring a self-driven project from every high school student.

Such opportunities, she said, might ultimately boost the number of young people who show up at the polls, reversing negative trends in youth voter turnout. Teenagers aren’t apolitical, she said — they just need to gain exposure to the value of engagement.

“They’re more aware than we give them credit for,” the senator said, recalling her experience at the Legislature as a high school student. “Giving students access to the government, watching civics unfold before their eyes, that changes lives.”