The Framework shows students the argument. The Concepts give them the language. The Civic Labs are where they enter the argument themselves — by investigating a live economic decision in their own community and taking a position they can defend.
Most economics is taught as settled fact. Real economic life is a sequence of contested decisions with no answer key. A Civic Lab hands students one such decision — a real one, unfolding now, in a real place — and asks them to do the work a citizen actually has to do: gather the data, talk to the people affected, state the strongest version of every side, and then decide. Not what to think. How to think — on a question that matters.
The first Civic Lab is built around a decision happening right now in New York City — its plan to open a publicly owned grocery store in Hunts Point, one of the poorest neighborhoods in the country. It is complete, classroom-ready, and the template every future lab follows.
Should a city build and own a grocery store? Students investigate the real players, the real money, and the genuine disagreement — steelmanning the case for the store, the small-grocer's objection, and the alternative of helping the stores already there.
The flagship proves the model. The next labs take on decisions that reach beyond any single city — the questions every community in the country is being asked to answer.
Each lab is a complete, ready-to-run package built on the same structure — so once a teacher has run one, they can run any of them. The shared research tools carry across every lab; only the issue changes.
An eight-beat investigation of a live, contested choice — with verified data, the players, and the genuine disagreement laid out fairly, every side steelmanned.
Short companion readings that give students the history and economics they need to understand what is actually at stake before they take a position.
Printable, photocopier-ready instruments — interview guides, surveys, data sheets, a position worksheet — so students do genuine research, not worksheets.
A teacher evaluates the curriculum on a page like this one: calm, complete, rigorous. But the surface a student actually works in is built differently — brighter, bolder, rooted in the place the lab is about. The shift in feel is deliberate: it marks the move from studying a decision to investigating one.
Step into the student-facing version of the flagship lab to see what your class would actually use.
Enter the student lab →