Civic Education

A More Enlightened People

Unique. The word unique describes the country we live in, the way it was created, the principles upon which it was founded, and sadly, it also describes those citizens who truly understand these three topics. Those in the United States who have a sound understanding of the constitution, and of what is best for our type of government, are becoming more and more rare. This is concerning. The less people know about the government, how it works and what makes it work better, the less people will participate in helping it to improve. The more informed citizens we have who understand government fundamentals, the more we will have who participate democratically. The more informed citizens we have participating democratically, the greater our unique nation will become. We need more effective civic education in public schools in order to produce more informed citizens who understand civic principles and participate in government.

Civic education is the study of the aspects of citizenship; its rights and duties as pertains to other citizens and the government. The John Birch Society, an organization dedicated to restoring and preserving freedom, argued that “an uninformed electorate,…will vote itself into slavery” (38). The reason why is that with uneducated voters, the placing of people to power isn’t based on who will work most effectively in the government system, but instead on who makes the best sounding promises, whether or not those promises can be fulfilled. This results in the government gaining more control than they were originally intended to. James Madison, fourth President of the United States, and “Father of the Constitution”, eloquently stated that:

Although all men are born free, slavery has been the general lot of the human race. Ignorant - they have been cheated; asleep - they have been surprised; divided - the yoke has been forced upon them. But what is the lesson? ...the people ought to be enlightened, to be awakened, to be united, that after establishing a government they should watch over it.... It is universally admitted that a well-instructed people alone can be permanently free. (qtd. in Stedman and Lewis 19)

Without citizens stopping it, the government can gain more and more control to do things without the consent of the people. However, if educated citizens unite together and participate in civic matters on a regular basis, the wants and needs of the people can dominate the wants and desires of the government, and liberty will be preserved. In order accomplish this, we the people of the United States of America, need to advocate a more widespread understanding of the principles of the constitution and the government system in such a way that it leads to political action. Mere civic education is not enough.

The idea that citizens should be properly educated, and should then act on that knowledge for the betterment of the nation is referred to as civic virtue.  Effective civic education leads to civic virtue. Fleming states, “The real crisis in education is not how much our children don’t know, but how little they participate in democracy” (Fleming 39). She stresses that classes need to contain, “discussion that leads to action,” and that “There is no right way to teach democracy unless we also practice it” (Fleming 41-44). Jason Gainous, Professor and Political Science Director at the University of Louisville, agreed with Fleming saying, “an informed but inactive citizenry would get us no closer to our democratic ideal” (235). Simply stated, the call is for civic virtue, or educated citizens taking action. In our society today we are seeing a great decline in the younger generation voting in elections. Galston reports that in the early 1970s, about one half of 18-29 year olds voted in presidential elections. By 2000, only one third did; and in 2002, less than one fifth voted in the congressional election (263). We need to raise these statistics.

According to University of California, Berkeley professor and Chair of the Department of History Sheldon Rothblatt, “Civic virtue has to be systematically acquired and learned” (28). Meaning more civic participation isn’t going to just happen. All the people affected by the government need to be taught civic principles, and be taught how to act on those principles. Rothblatt said, “Every citizen is directly and profoundly affected by how society governs itself” (29). Therefore, every student needs an effective civic education for America to realize its full potential.  In Richard G. Niemi and Jane Junn’s book entitled Civic Education, they argue a similar point as Rothblatt saying that the “decision-makers,” or the voters, must have sound understandings of governmental and political principles; and that this concept is “one of the most important qualifications for self-governance” (Niemi 1). Louise Conn Fleming, Professor at Ashland University, stressed, “A democracy cannot maintain itself without active citizens, and young people cannot live up to their full potential as citizens unless they have been taught how” (Fleming 41). All of these experts and commentators agree, the citizens of this nation need to be educated effectively in matters of government and politics, and they need to be taught how to use this knowledge efficiently in society.

In the professional field of Civic Education, all agree that increased effectiveness in civic education in turn increases civic participation as citizens. Many studies have shown when these classes are offered and taken, “young people…were more likely to vote and follow the news, and four times as likely to volunteer for a campaign” (Fleming 41).  Gainous and Martens cited nine separate studies performed to try and find a correlation between civic education and civic participation. They concluded, “Study after study demonstrates a connection between educational attainment and increased political knowledge and civic engagement as well as greater acceptance of basic democratic norms” (Gainous and Martens 234).

Let us compare today’s typical citizens and their understanding of government principles with those of the past. Alexis de Tocqueville, an eminent French jurist, traveled to America in the 1830’s and wrote, “…every citizen…is taught…the doctrines and the evidences of his religion, the history of his country, and the leading features of its Constitution….it is extremely rare to find a man imperfectly acquainted with all these things, and a person wholly ignorant of them is a sort of phenomenon” (Tocqueville). This report of the man oblivious to government principles being the exception can be compared with conditions today using the results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress civics test issued in 2010. The testing revealed that 64% of twelfth graders scored with only a “basic” score, meaning there was little, if any, demonstrated knowledge on the subject and only 24% were even at a proficient level (National Center for Education Statistics 35). There are a number of reasons for this shift.

William Galston, a political theorist, professor of civic engagement, and director of the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy at the University of Maryland, argues that the education system in America has greatly downplayed the importance of civic education. He reports that most high school’s civic education today is comprised of only one government course, as opposed to the reported average of three required in the 1960s (Galston 264). So even though a government course is required, we still see the nation’s students greatly lacking in terms of civic literacy. Some have suggested we add more civics classes. Many educators may feel that adding more civic education courses would take away valuable time from core classes such as math, science, and reading. While this may be true, some feel that civic education should be put on an equal level as the core classes. Galston stated, “We have made a major investment in formal education, without any discernible payoff in increased civic knowledge” (Galston 264). Others feel the very cause of the ineffectiveness of civic education is that kids “are being drilled to death in math and reading,” while high percentages of teens are failing the National Assessment of Educational Progress civics test (Hutchins 71). However, there is a way that we don’t have to sacrifice our focus on core classes, and still improve our nations understanding of civics and government.

A possible best first-step fix of this problem is not with the quantity of civic courses, but more so with the quality of the courses currently taught. Dallin Hardy, a government educator and social studies department head at Morgan High School, argues that the quality of the government courses being taught currently on average is not reaching its full potential. He describes that one of the major reasons for this is many government instructors don’t understand the necessary principles in depth enough (Hardy). Galston confirmed this showing studies that indicate a significant percentage of teachers who teach these civic classes, “have little formal preparation for that task” and that “In many states, certification requirements do not ensure that teachers called upon to teach courses on civics institutions, processes, and controversies will have the background needed to do the job” (264). He says that students who leave those classes, “understand why it matters to feed a hungry person at a soup kitchen; they do not understand why it matters where government sets eligibility levels for food stamps or payment levels for the Earned Income Tax Credit” (Galston 263).  Therefore, one solution may be to start with improving our educators in order to best help those being educated. Much is available to assist teachers in this area. A requested attendance at conferences where these principles are taught and higher certification requirements for teaching in the field are possible avenues.

Web Hutchins, a high school teacher in Seattle, Washington, has spent much of his life trying to solve the problem of keeping focus on core classes, yet inspiring civic virtue on a higher level. He created a module for school districts to apply which has shown amazing results. His programs infuse government and political topics into all of the curriculums at the school, including math and the sciences, therefore not adding a single course to the list. He merely altered the current courses to include these principles in their lesson plans, helping students to truly understand the principles (Hutchins 72). His program includes a wide variety of ways to mix civics into core courses such as: studying tax policies in math class, burqa laws in French class, or global warming in science class. The students who come out of Hutchins’ program actively teach those around them about political issues and processes, and they “believe it’s their civic duty to share their opinions and their growing wisdom with the community” (Hutchins 73).

Perhaps an aligning of every school’s curriculum in the nation with Mr. Hutchins’ program is unrealistic, but this is just one solution of many, and the principle is the same. Increased civic education is a necessary goal for our nation. Each school can find ways to start on a path toward more effective civic education in ways that best fit their students. Among the solutions could be more civic education courses, a weaving of civic principles in current curriculums, higher teacher certification requirements, and better civic teacher trainings.  And while there is still much to discover, the research available to us now has demonstrated that “civics course work is an important part of the way…students learn about American government and politics” (Niemi 159). Effective presentation of this information on the part of the instructors will lead their students to be active, educated citizens that lead our nation, once again, to greatness.

Works Cited

Fleming, Louise Conn. "Civic Participation: A Curriculum For Democracy." American Secondary Education (2011): 39-50. Web. 25 October 2012.

Gainous, Jason and Allison M. Martens. "The Effectiveness Of Civic Education: Are “Good” Teachers Actually Good For “All” Students?" American Politics Research (2012): 232-266. Web. 31 October 2012.

Galston, William A. "Civic Education and Political Participation." Political Science and Politics 37 (2004): 263-266. Web. 27 October 2012.

Hardy, Dallin. Interview. Colton Kilmer. 26 October 2012.

Hutchins, Web. "Groomed for Citizenship." Educational Leadership (2012): 70-73. Web. 20 October 2012.

National Center for Education Statistics. "The Nation's Report Card." 2010. Web. 1 November 2012.

Niemi, Richard G. and Jane Junn. Civic Education. Chelsea: BookCrafters, Inc, 1998.

Rothblatt, Sheldon. "Yet Another Plea for Civic Virtue." Liberal Education (2012): 24-29. Web. 29 October 2012.

Stedman, W. David and Lavaughn G. Lewis. Rediscovering the Ideas of Liberty: the Foundations of America's Greatness. W David Stedman Assoc Pubns Div, 1995. Print.

The John Birch Society. "Back to Basics." The New American (2002): 38-40. Web. 30 October 2012.

Tocqueville, Alexis de. Democracy in America. London: Saunders and Otley, 1835. Web. 30 October 2012.