Periodically, I use my blog to indulge a rant about Americans’ lack of civic literacy. (Regular readers are probably getting tired of my preoccupation with civic education-or more accurately, the lack thereof.) Be warned- I’m going to beat that dead horse again today.
A column written by Colbert King from the Washington Post has highlighted still another research project confirming Americans’ low levels of civic knowledge.
King introduced the topic by noting what we might call “constitutional challenges” in Donald Trump’s Presidential campaign.
He proposed a religious test on immigration, promised to “open up” U.S. libel laws and revoked press credentials of critical reporters. He called for killing family members of terrorists, said he would do “a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding” terrorism suspects and suggested that a U.S.-born federal judge of Mexican heritage couldn’t be neutral because of his ethnicity. He whipped up animosity against Muslims and immigrants from Mexico, branding the latter as “rapists.” When protesters interrupted his rallies, he cheered violence against them. He told a political opponent that if he won,he would “get a special prosecutor to look into your situation,”
adding “you’d be in jail.” He threatened not to respect election results if he didn’t win and, in Idi Amin fashion, made the claims of a strongman: “I alone can fix it.” He publicly expressed admiration for authoritarian Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Cherished notions of religious freedom, a free press, an independent judiciary and the rights of minorities took a beating from him. The prospect of mob violence in his defense and imprisoning political opponents found favor.
An electorate with even a basic understanding of the U.S. Constitution Would have found these assaults on foundational American principles reprehensible. And in fairness, civically- educated Americans did recoil.
The problem is, we don’t have enough civically-educated Americans.
How did a pluralistic nation that propounds democratic values and practices come to this?
“This” not being the authoritarian in the White House who dismisses basic constitutional principles as if they were annoying gnats, but “this” — an electorate that looks past the disrespect shown toward democratic ideals.
That haunting question has occupied the minds of Richard D. Kahlenberg and Clifford Janey,two education scholars and writers who began to take a hard look at this fundamental domestic challenge long before November’s results came in.
Kahlenberg and Janey addressed the scope ofthe problem in a joint Century Foundation report released in November, “Putting Democracy Back into Public Education.’The report was also discussed in an article in the Atlantic, “Is Trump’s Victory the Jump-Start Civics Education Needed?”
Janey and Kahlenberg argue that our “schools are failing at what the nation’s founders saw as education’s most basic purpose: preparing young people to be reflective citizens who would value liberty and democracy and resist the appeals of demagogues.”
They said today’s schools turn themselves inside out trying to prepare “college-and- career ready” students who can contend with economic globalization and economic competition and find a niche with private skills in the marketplace.
As for preparing them for American democracy? Raising civics literacy levels? Cultivating knowledge of democratic practices and beliefs with rigorous courses in history, literature and how democratic means have been used to improve the country? Not so much or maybe not at all, they suggest.
This has to change .And in Indiana, at least, a number of us are committed to changing it.
Women4Change is currently launching an effort to increase civic education; I am heading up a subcommittee that will encourage the formation of book clubs around the state focused upon the history and philosophy of America’s constitution. We will also be enlisting volunteers who will advocate in their local school systems for inclusion of the “We the People” curriculum, which is now entirely voluntary. Research has demonstrated that We the People has a salutary, lasting influence on students who have gone through it.
Citizens will not-cannot-protect what they don’t understand.
