generation. Neither civics nor history
comes anywhere near math or literacy
in the priorities set by most of our
schools today—and it shows.
This neglect is not what the founders
of our republic had in mind. Jefferson
believed that cultivating civic virtue
should be a key goal of education
(Chinard, 1926). Washington and
Madison imagined a national university
that would teach good citizenship to
America’s younger generations (Bailyn,
1960).
The tradition of placing civics at the
center of schooling continued for much
of the 19th and 20th centuries. In his
visit to America in the 1830s, Alexis
de Tocqueville noted that unlike in the
nations of Europe, the general thrust of
American schooling was directed toward
political life (Tocqueville, 1840/2002).
When waves of new immigrants reached
these shores in the late 19th and early
20th centuries, one explicit mission of
the public schools was to teach them
how to become productive citizens in a
democracy (Tyack, 1974).
A recent report from the Annenberg
Public Policy Center at the University
of Pennsylvania (Gould, 2011) noted
that until the 1960s, U.S. high schools
routinely offered courses called Civics,
Problems of Democracy, and U.S.
Government. Since then, however, we
have seen a decades-long decline in
civics instruction, fueled by increasing
pressure on schools to raise student
scores on tests of basic reading and
math skills.
There is no gene for citizenship; it
must be learned. Like any activity that
relies on knowledge and skill, it can
be learned well, or it can be learned
badly—either with sound knowledge
and good judgment or with irrationality
and ignorance. The good news is that
in a democracy like ours, everyone
can learn to participate in constructive
citizenship activities, regardless of
family background, cultural heritage, or
social status. The bad news is that we
are failing to provide our youth with an
education sufficient to this task.
Placing Citizenship
Front and Center
What can we do about this crisis? First,
citizenship instruction must be placed
front and center in U.S. classrooms
rather than relegated to the margins.
We must ensure that our students learn
essential civic concepts, such as the
separation of powers, representative
government, and the meaning and
importance of the U.S. Constitution.
Some programs for such teaching now
exist. But such programs are not widely
used, in part because the assessments
that now drive the priorities of schools
rarely test for civic knowledge.
And civic knowledge, although
important, is not enough. To effectively
participate in a democratic society,
young people must also have a sense
of civic purpose (Damon, 2008, 2011).
Young citizens must care enough about
society to be willing to act—even to
sacrifice if called on. Jefferson, quoting
Montesquieu, wrote in his common-
place book that “to preserve the republic
we must love it. . . . Everything depends
on establishing this love in a republic;
and to inspire it ought to be the prin-
cipal business of education” (Gowdy,
n.d.). If we are to educate students for
this kind of dedicated civic purpose, we
need to do the following:
