It’s time to get serious about civics. States must require that it be taught and learned. Teachers must be deeply grounded in it and prepared to teach it. Schools — elementary, middle, and high schools — must make time for it in their schedules. We need top-quality curricula that contain essential knowledge, impart vital skills, and don’t shy away from what Alexis de Tocqueville termed “reflective patriotism.”
Yes, this has all been said before, but far too little has been done to put all those parts in place.
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That’s why, for example, the Hoover Institution’s Working Group on Good American Citizenship reports found that just four states — Idaho, Louisiana, Virginia and West Virginia — insist that their high schools teach a full year of civics and that their students pass a test in this subject before graduating. That’s also why, when the Thomas B. Fordham Institute evaluated state civics standards a few years back, only five jurisdictions earned “A” grades. (Another 13 qualified for “B’s.”)
We shouldn’t be surprised that children and adults know so little about their country’s past, what makes it tick, and why it’s worth celebrating even as we strive to correct its shortcomings.
Nor should we be surprised that the country is so divided.
As the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence approaches next year, and as educators observe Civic Learning Week in the coming days, let’s quit dawdling.
Ample evidence attests to the problems we face as a country — the ignorance problem, the good citizenship problem, and the hot-button cultural and political clashes that tempt us to view the situation as hopeless.
Yet there’s also ample evidence that the crucial elements we need to fix our problems are sitting there, waiting to be assembled.
The first step is acknowledging that most Americans think that civic education really matters and that–when we turn away from professional culture warriors, political flamethrowers, and conflict entrepreneurs–most of us actually agree on its essentials: the fundamental knowledge, skills, and dispositions that young Americans should acquire.
A hot-off-the-presses study from the University of Southern California’s Dornsife Center makes clear that, especially among parents, there is broad assent across the political spectrum regarding the importance of civics education, the inadequate job we’re currently doing in that realm, and the core elements of what should be taught and learned.
Fortunately, several worthy efforts on the curricular front have already incorporated that latent consensus into model frameworks, standards and instructional materials, including Arizona State’s “Civic Literacy Curriculum,” the “Educating for American Democracy” project (with which I am associated), soon to be based at the Adams Presidential Center; and the National Association of Scholars’ “American Birthright” project, as well as bountiful materials from groups such as iCivics and the Bill of Rights Institute.
Some schools, especially in the charter sector, can now boast exemplary civics programs. It would be difficult, for instance, to graduate from a Basis Charter School without having passed the excellent Advanced Placement course in “United States Government and Politics,” which itself draws heavily on the fine work of the National Constitution Center.
What’s most lacking today is forceful action by state leaders to give civics (and history) the priority it deserves, right up there with reading and math. The job of schools, after all, isn’t just to equip kids with basic skills. It’s also to prepare citizens—good citizens.
Almost nobody wants Uncle Sam splashing in these waters nowadays, so it’s mostly up to the states to bring about a renaissance in civics education. This means, first and foremost, setting rigorous standards, requiring that the subject be taught, insisting that teachers be properly prepared, supplying suitable curricula — and demanding results-based accountability for schools and students alike.
Yet that’s not all of it. States (and schools) have vital roles to play, but citizenship isn’t merely a subject to be learned in classrooms and schools aren’t the only shapers of citizens. So are colleges and universities, churches and synagogues, the civic organization we belong to, the employers we work for and with, the media (both traditional and “social”), and the communities in which we live.
Like the Declaration of Independence itself, which depicted the nation’s birth as a landmark “in the course of human events,” Civic Learning Week paints with a broad brush, viewing “civic knowledge, skills, and dispositions” as “the foundation for an informed and engaged populace.”
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That’s why the week’s sponsors range across eminent private firms, major philanthropies, distinguished nonprofits, and leading education groups. That’s also why the Center on Revitalizing American Institutions at Stanford’s Hoover Institution is co-hosting (with iCivics) this year’s capstone “national forum” on the Stanford campus.
It’s time we all got serious about civics education because we’re dealing with one of the most consequential challenges facing America today. We must seize the opportunity to face it head-on.
Chester E. Finn, Jr. is the distinguished senior fellow and president emeritus of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, and Volker senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He served in the U.S. Education Department from 1985 to 1988.