Not only did we never have a civics test in high school (graduated '93), but what little constitutional and political content we had was shoehorned into World Geography.
We had a year long government class we had to take, supposedly if you didn’t pass you didn’t graduate.
I know a few kids who didn’t pass and they graduated anyway.
so I picked no.
In early 90s Louisiana, you were required to pass a one-semester Civics class. It provided a fair overview of the essentials at the federal level, but covered almost nothing at the state level or smaller.
Oddly enough, it also resulted in a lot of kids learning to type. The only other one-semester class my school offered at the time was Typing, so nearly everyone was stuck with taking both classes.
We had a required, one-semester class called American Government, which was exactly what it said on the box.
Not to graduate, but I support the idea. 
Thanks, Eva Luna. It was bugging me out of all proportion to its importance that I couldn’t remember clearly!
No. I never even took a civics class.
We had to have a civics class, but no special test of any kind. It was one of my favorite classes in ninth grade because I actually learned something (rather than other social studies classes where we kept repeating crap we’d already been taught before.)
We not only had to pass a required civics course (U.S. history) in high school, but when I was at the University of Missouri, all undergraduate students had to pass a course on the Missouri constution and government. All 20,000 of us. And it wasn’t just an auditorium lecture course either – dozens of sections every semester with papers and projects and the whole nine yards.
I also went to a Catholic college where undergraduates had to complete at least one theology course. There were a lot of different choices, though, ranging from Bible study to comparative religions to a course on atheism.
No.
We studied all three levels of government (municipal, provincial, federal) in Grades 5 and 6; and obviously at those ages, weren’t required to have a final exam or anything similar. Still, we were expected to know what we learned as we went forward to high school, and as I recall, those who couldn’t remember did have a few problems–a lot of our history classes in high school dealt with parliamentary debates over contemporary issues, and those who had no idea how a government was formed under our constitution did not fare very well.
We had to pass one in eighth grade in order to go to high school, 1968, IL. No requirements for high school, maybe because high school wasn’t the be all and end all then. Kids routinely dropped out of high school at the age of 16.
NETA: I went to a Catholic school and passing the civics exam was a graduation requirement. It wasn’t just a public school thing.
No, just regular tests and stuff. Hell, where I grew up you were already considered a good citizen if you didn’t screw a cow on a dare.
Unless you count the Constitution test (required of every high school senior in Illinois), then no.
In Illinois, I had to pass a constitution test in the 7th grade and again in the 10th grade. Both times came with a semester of government-oriented Social Studies which culminated in the constitution test at the end of the semester.
Graduated in 1991.
I took “Government” in 12th grade (1974), doesn’t everybody have to? Now that I say that I don’t remember my kids taking it, but I could have missed it.
No,
I think it should be a requirement. I also think that high school should be required to a rudimentary knowledge of doing taxes, at least fill out a 1040EZ form.
We had this in Alabama in the 70s - a required Civics class in 9th grade. No special test, just pass the course which presumably had a mid-term and final exam. Unlike BigT, I retained absolutely nothing about this class. Everything I “learned” in the first 12 years of school (which I hated with a blinding passion), I had to relearn in college (which I loved with a blinding passion). Go figure.
I said no because I don’t even know what a civics test is.