CIVICS and Its Role In Democracy
Has 60 years of cutting back on CIVICS Education finally catching up to us?
Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains ~ Jean Jacques Rousseau
Case in point was Friday night’s voting round #15 on the floor of the House of Representatives. Like many of you I was at home wondering, “How did we get here?”
How did civility die in politics and can we trace the lack of civility, knowledge about how government actually works and lack of participation to the decreased CIVICS learning in public school?
So what is CIVICS?
CIVICS is the study of the rights and duties of citizenship. Every single person living on this planet has to a degree CIVIC obligations, responsibilities and if they live in democratic societies they can also practice these rights.
Since 1960, the teaching of CIVICS in public education has slowly been replaced by more STEM courses and demands. And many CIVICS courses are now put under the umbrella of Social Studies with limited actual CIVIC education. So how can we not require CIVICS education in public school when it is essentially a life skill for functioning in a democratic society?
Democracy needs to be maintained and in itself demands educated citizens. Citizenship is taught in the classroom though CIVICS education. A student will graduate from public school and they will need to practice their CIVIC education as part of their adulthood rite of passage. CIVICS education teaches us how to follow rules and laws, how to live in a community, how to vote, and a list of other CIVIC responsibilities that need to be exercised as part of adulthood and living in a society.
There was a study in 2018 in which 2 out of 3 Americans couldn’t pass the US Citizenship Test. This test is a requirement to every single person applying to be an American Citizen. The test itself has a passing rate of 60%. Easy peasy right, that is literally a D to pass. But the most shocking thing was that the highest age of people who passed the test were ages 65 and older, at 74%. Those 45 years old and younger had the lowest passing rate at 19%.
Where does Texas stand in CIVICS Education?
Well in this survey Texas ranked 40 out of 51 states. Near the bottom. What was more shocking was the scores themselves.
Score/percentage
A - 3%
B - 7%
C - 12%
D - 15%
F - 63%
Majority of those people who tested FAILED.
Now this was in 2018 and a lot of things have happened since then. In 2022 Texas Senator John Cornyn and Delaware Senator Chris Coons introduced a bill on CIVICS education called the USA Civics Education Act, which would reauthorize an American history and civics grant program to promote knowledge of American political thought and history, free institutions, democracy, and participation in political and civic life. It was read twice and is dead in the water in the Senate
In Texas with so much emphasis on the STAAR test, more efforts have been in place teaching our students how to take a test vs how to be a good citizen. This is creating a lot of cracks within our system.
What will it take to create a civic minded society that will save democracy?
We believe the answer to this question is to teach CIVICS education again. The role of public education is to cultivate citizens. Jean Jaques Rousseau believed that freedom is when you wish for the common good. Rousseau’s Social Contract theory says that people live together in society in accordance with an agreement that establishes moral and political behavior that benefits the common good. Where did we learn that?
In Civics classes.
Here's the link to the official citizenship test.
https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/questions-and-answers/110q.pdf
And it someone wants to test themselves, this site gives a random 10
questions from the 2023 official test. https://www.civicsquestions.com
References:
Jean Jacques Rousseau The Social Contract
2 of 3 Americans Wouldn’t pass the US Citizenship Test https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2018-10-12/2-of-3-americans-wouldnt-pass-us-citizenship-test
https://citizensandscholars.org/resource/national-survey-finds-just-1-in-3-americans-would-pass-citizenship-test/
Cornyn Bill on CIVICS Education: https://www.cornyn.senate.gov/node/6736
I totally agree. I am 70 years old and registered voters this past two years. I was surprised to learn that many young people did not know 1) how to register to vote, and 2) that they even needed to register to vote. This is only the tip of the iceberg because I had to educate many on what was on the ballot and how, where, and when to vote. I am sure many do not know the difference between the state legislature and US Congress. And all the branches of government. It is crucial everyone in the US learn CIVICS.
The first link is broken, FYI. I wholeheartedly agree that Civics belongs back in schools, I've been taking it upon myself to educate my kids, so I love the resources. What else can we do?