Q: Do schools still teach civics? My middle school-age daughter has no clue how government works. How can I help her develop civics knowledge in an interesting way?

A: Middle-schoolers aren't the only ones who can't tell a senator from a representative. The Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania finds alarming civic illiteracy among adults. In a recent poll, only slightly more than a third of Americans surveyed could name the three branches of the U.S. government. Thirty-five percent couldn't name a single branch. (Test yourself at civicseducationinitiative.com/take-the-test.)

Social studies, which include civics, suffered with the passage of No Child Left Behind. "In an age of high-stakes testing, teachers are under immense pressure to teach what's tested, and science, math, reading and writing are what we test," says Dr. Emma Humphries at the Bob Graham Center for Public Service at the University of Florida. "Nowhere is this truer than at the elementary level, where teachers report mere minutes devoted to social studies instruction."

Most states require at least one high school semester of American government. Some now require civics instruction earlier. Tennessee and Florida have embedded more civics into their curricula in recent years. In addition, Tennessee's legislature is considering a bill that would make high school students pass a civics test to graduate.

No one has done more to reboot civics than retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. "In 2010, Florida unanimously adopted the Justice Sandra Day O'Connor Civics Education Act to improve civics instruction and assessment," says Humphries. "The act requires that students successfully complete at least one semester of civics for middle school promotion and take an end-of-course examination that constitutes 30 percent of their final grade. Most of Florida's 67 school districts have implemented yearlong civics courses in seventh grade to prepare students for the high-stakes exam."

In 2010, O'Connor founded iCivics.org, a free, interactive website with award-winning games and other digital activities that place students in different civic roles and give them agency to address real-world problems and issues.

"It's a great resource for home or school," says Humphries. "Since its launch, students have played iCivics games 27 million times." (Humphries recommends floridacitizen.org/resources/other for more resources.)

Bill Laraway, a fifth-grade teacher in San Jose, California, encourages parents to use current events to get kids excited about civics.

"There's always something meaty to discuss -- from banning sodas in schools or climate change, to measuring the effectiveness of protest marches," he says. "These talks give kids a chance to polish critical thinking and language skills."

Laraway uses news apps such as NPR, USA Today and CNN to prompt conversation. He also directs parents to age-appropriate discussion guides at CNN Student News, Channel One News, Scholastic News, Newsela and Time For Kids.

Florida congressman Patrick Murphy meets often with students in his district: "A student recently asked about Ben Franklin's advice: 'It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority.' I replied that to be an effective citizen, you must first know what citizenship means. It's exciting to see a renewed emphasis on civic education in our schools."

(Do you have a question about your child's education? Email it to Leanna@aplusadvice.com. Leanna Landsmann is an education writer who began her career as a classroom teacher. She has served on education commissions, visited classrooms in 49 states to observe best practices, and founded Principal for a Day in New York City.)

Q: Our district is shifting from STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) to STEAM, adding Arts, supposedly because they will help students do better in STEM subjects. I'm for bringing arts back into the curriculum, but do they really help kids score better in math and science?

A: A growing group is advocating for a STEAM approach -- from parents and teachers who think that integrating arts into subjects motivates students, to business leaders who say that an arts education produces more innovative thinkers and better problem solvers.

Many cite the work of the late Stanford University theorist, Dr. Elliot Eisner, who identified 10 lessons the arts teach. (See arteducators.org/advocacy/10-lessons-the-arts-teach.)

There are good reasons to "bring back" arts to a STEM-heavy curriculum, but improving math and science scores is not among them.

Eisner rejected research purporting to show that music, dance and painting boost test scores. He promoted arts study for arts' sake. His Discipline-Based Art Education (DBAE) stresses four aspects: making art, appreciating it, understanding it and making judgments about it. He thought that the critical thinking required to create artistic works is relevant to all curriculum areas and helps students learn that problems can have more than one solution and that questions can have more than one answer.

University of Arkansas education professor Dr. Jay Greene agrees that there is "almost no rigorous evidence" showing that arts improve test scores. However, his recent research shows that the arts can have important positive effects on students.

He and his colleagues randomly assigned 11,000 students from schools in Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma to two groups. One took a series of field trips to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas. The other group did not.

The researchers were "careful to focus on outcomes that could plausibly be altered by the arts," says Greene. They measured whether field trip art experiences had an effect on student values, such as tolerance and empathy, and whether students' ability "to engage in critical thinking about the arts was affected by these experiences."

The results showed that not only did the cultural experiences improve students' knowledge about the arts, but the exposure also affected students' values, "making them more tolerant and empathetic," Greene notes. "We suspect that their awareness of different people, places and ideas through the arts helps them appreciate and accept the differences they find in the broader world."

The museum experiences also boosted critical thinking. Students took "the time to be more careful and thorough in how they observe the world." (For more on the study, see educationnext.org/the-educational-value-of-field-trips.)

"Arts integration is a powerful tool for engaging students," says John Ceschini, an arts education officer in Prince George's County, Maryland. As past principal of Seven Oaks Elementary School, a STEAM school in Maryland's Anne Arundel County, he saw firsthand how integrating the arts into STEM lessons can motivate kids and "foster critical-thinking skills -- analyzing, assessing, categorizing, classifying, predicting, justifying, interpreting."

The arts may not guarantee top grades in STEM subjects. But the other benefits to students -- learning to view the world from multiple perspectives, to empathize, create, collaborate and problem-solve -- are good reasons for arts integration to go full-steam ahead.

(Do you have a question about your child's education? Email it to Leanna@aplusadvice.com. Leanna Landsmann is an education writer who began her career as a classroom teacher. She has served on education commissions, visited classrooms in 49 states to observe best practices, and founded Principal for a Day in New York City.)

Q: My third-grade son would rather play video games than read. He's motivated by his allowance, so we're thinking of giving him a dollar for each book he gets through. Is there any research that shows this works?

A: Save your money. The research shows that extrinsic rewards aren't effective in developing a love of reading. In his book, "Punished by Rewards: The Trouble With Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise and Other Bribes," educator Alfie Kohn shows how "a reward buys us a behavior -- in this case, the act of checking out a book and reading it. But at what price?"

He says that quality learning declines significantly when kids are extrinsically motivated.

We want children to be motivated to read because they love to, not because they might get a reward, says Pat Johnson, co-author with Katie Keier of "Catching Readers Before They Fall" (Stenhouse 2010). Keier says that when we reward students for the number of books they read, they often choose books well below the difficulty level of what they could be reading.

Students' motivation to read is influenced by four interrelated factors, says reading expert Linda Gambrell, distinguished professor of education at Clemson University. They are:

-- Their experience with books: If kids have struggled or view books as something they only use in school, they're more likely to "hate reading."

-- Their access to books.

-- Their social interactions about books: Do they see that books can bring pleasure or more knowledge about topics they're interested in?

-- Their ability to choose the books they read.

"Letting your son choose his reading is very important," says Carl Harvey, library media specialist at North Elementary School in Noblesville, Indiana. "Start with what interests him. Check out an armful of books; don't worry if some selections look like junk to you. Work with your children's librarian to find a book with characters like those in a favorite video game or a series with a hero your son identifies with."

Children's author Bill Doyle thinks boys often choose games over books because the titles on recommended lists often lack "the action boys look for in games -- bad guys and battles, and descriptions of technological derring-do."

Doyle's humorous "Scream Team" series features werewolves, vampires and zombies.

"At bedtime," he says, "let boys read stuff that doesn't exactly lull them off to sleep. We want them to keep turning those pages."

Another Doyle series, "Behind Enemy Lines," a collection of true adventures from military hotspots like those in the Middle East, "gets a lot of fan mail from young boys, including those whose parents are deployed in these wars," he says.

"Think beyond books," Harvey reminds parents. Point out the many ways we use reading each day, he advises, "whether pulling up directions on your phone, finding a blog about a new video game your son might like, or sharing a 'Star Wars' comic."

Show your son that reading isn't just about school -- that it informs us, entertains us and connects us to people and ideas that make our lives richer. In time, he'll see that those are priceless rewards.

(Do you have a question about your child's education? Email it to Leanna@aplusadvice.com. Leanna Landsmann is an education writer who began her career as a classroom teacher. She has served on education commissions, visited classrooms in 49 states to observe best practices, and founded Principal for a Day in New York City.)