Older voters need civics basics as much as high school, college students
It’s funny and at the same time alarming that one of 10 U.S. college graduates polled in 2016 misidentified television’s “Judge Judy” as a member of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Personally, I feel that’s much more alarming than amusing, but it fits with the misinformed answers people – mature folks, senior citizens in some cases – give interviewers asking questions about our basic institutions and governance.
It’s common for Americans to confuse the Declaration of Independence – celebrated today in a national holiday, although it was signed on July 2, 1776 – with the Constitution. That’s one of the points S. Adam Seagrave made in an article in American Legion magazine.
“Most college graduates think Thomas Jefferson was the father of the Constitution, though he wasn’t even in the country at the time of its drafting. Only two in five Americans can name all three branches of government. More than a third can’t name a single right guaranteed by the First Amendment, which is the most commonly known part of the Constitution.”
ESSENTIAL KNOWLEDGE
(Jefferson was the lead writer of the Declaration; James Madison is the father of the Constitution; Legislative, Executive, Judicial are the three branches. Amendment I (first of the 10 amendments called the Bill of Rights) protects freedom of religion, speech, and the press; rights of assembly and petition.)
Seagrave is associate director of the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership at Arizona State University. In the Legion article, he writes: “American constitutional democracy can’t run on autopilot. … we need to open the eyes of all Americans, beginning in K-12 classrooms, to the essential knowledge and civic virtues necessary to maintain our constitutional democracy for future generations.”
Ignorance is not as good as knowledge. Seagrave writes that the “embarrassing ignorance about American history and political institutions has corresponded with a troubling erosion of support for American political principles.” He cites data showing the wide differences of millennials’ beliefs compared to older Americans.
STEM HAS PRIORITY
A quarter of millennials say it’s “unimportant” to elect leaders, compared to 10% of the interwar generation and 14% of baby boomers. Perhaps that helps explain why so many people accept Trump’s Big Lie about the 2020 election. Or the outrageous claims some elected officials are now making about the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol.
School systems are incentivized to teach as little civics as they can, partly because STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) have priority, including on the testing and ultimately funding.
“Failures of American civic education in schools have led directly to the disturbing deficiencies in civic knowledge we have seen,” Seagrave writes.
OUR CIVIC FABRIC
State Sen. Greg Hembree of Little River recalled a conversation nine years ago with a French foreign exchange student “who had a better understanding [of U.S. political institutions] than my kids.” Hembree, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, said South Carolina requires instruction on history, civics and government, in grades K-12.
“It’s not being ignored. Is it enough? I don’t know.” In the recent legislative session, the part of the law, the REACH Act, related to four-year colleges was restructured to ensure teaching of founding documents.
REACH is Re-enforcing Education on America’s Constitutional Heritage. Seagrave writes that “the events of recent months underscore the urgency of strengthening our civic fabric. … a constitutional democracy such as ours cannot survive on STEM alone. This task must start with a concerted effort to improve understanding of U.S. political principles, institutions and history.”
The effort must extend beyond K-12 schools and colleges and Americans long out of the classroom may be most in need of civics understanding.
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D.G. Schumacher is a senior writer on The Sun News Editorial Board