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Civic Education BEFORE voting age

Why Is This Idea Important?: Some school districts teach a few units on democracy and our government (maybe local government helpers) in elementary school (often at the teacher's discretion) but have no other formal teaching until the SENIOR year of HIGH SCHOOL with a semester of Government Class. With 30% of our students dropping out before their senior year in many schools, that leaves millions of young citizens with no knowledge and no interest in participating even with merely voting. The League of Women Voters has a project to hold a mock election in a small number of high schools (as many as they can get funding for the supplies) --an excellent project-- but as I've pointed out, for drop-outs this is too late and for others even this minimum of hands on experience doesn't happen. AT the very least the Secretary of Education Duncan and the president should use the bully pulpit to promote civic education/involvement in the curriculum of the schools of our nation educating our up-and-coming citizens. The results will be seen as they reach voting age and on. Hopefully, with greater civic participation

The No Child Left Behind project put so much emphasis on Math, Science and Language Arts that Civics and other school subjects that promote a better understanding of the crucial role of citizen involvement have been squeezed out. We need for all states and all school districts to re-introduce multiple levels of teaching civics and citizen participation in the school systems of the nation and use hands-on, involvement approaches (not just reading about it in a text book.)

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Submitted by greatplainsgirl 2 years ago

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Comments (5)

  1. grannyliss1 said:

    This would explain how an illegal alien has become the prez. Students have no concept of America's history or the foundations upon which this great country was built. The only "history" which they are taught is the revisionist history, the "blame America for everything that has ever been wrong with the entire world" stuff.

    2 years ago
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  2. Harold Pack said:

    As long as it was restricted to teaching the constitution and giving historical prospective by studying the writings of the "American Republics Founding Fathers" and history lessons as to why they did so.

    2 years ago
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  3. jonhenry78 said:

    As a graduate of "public schools" I can tell you that those who refuse to learn cannot be taught.

    There is plenty of civic education in and out of schools, it depends on desire to seek truth. I escaped from California and it's (failed) education system. Been better off ever since.

    2 years ago
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  4. sandra.havens said:

    I have discovered in my involvement with politics (in many ways) that the American people in general do not know or understand the Constitution, are confused about what they believe (with respect to government) and remain largely uninformed about what the government is doing. Given this circumstance it seems obvious to me that "bad", overexpansive government is the inevitable result and that we can not very much longer maintain the Constitutional government our founders gave us. I think the main-stream media as well as the public school system have a lot to answer for.

    2 years ago
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  5. essjaslp said:

    There is an excellent program available at the nationwide level that provides research proven civic education. It is available to schools with little or no charge for training and books. The Center for Civic Education has helped many schools in my state access this program. It is called We The People; the Citizen and the Constitution. There is another program, Project Citizen which is also excellent. I have trained in and taught from both programs and students are engaged and participative when the materials are provided. I think, based on my experiences that students will more involved as adults if the have a grasp and appreciation for a topic as young people. Both of the programs I mentioned are great ways to build that knowledge for young people.

    2 years ago
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