CIVICS EDUCATION, AND OUR AILING DEMOCRACY, NEED A BOOSTER SHOT By Robert Kim These days, a health crisis is at the forefront of many people’s minds. The coronavirus outbreak has made international news and generated widespread concern. Quarantines are up, and the quest for a vaccine is on.
state capitols, and the halls of Congress teem with constituents. But, if you pan out, there’s increasingly a sense that nothing we do or say will spur our fellow citizens, much less our elected officials, to think or act differently.
Yet, scary as the COVID-19 virus is, I’m more preoccupied with a different kind of ailment: the health of our democracy.
I suspect that the problem is not apathy; that is, we aren’t somehow inherently less engaged than before. Rather, we live in an online era in which people can access information and engage with each other in a way that feels public, but is essentially still private, in nature. Activism today consists of millions of closed-loop conversations. We’re connected to some, yet disconnected from our larger society and systems of government. Paradoxically, the Internet’s democratizing of information may have damaged democracy itself (at least in the short term). We need to figure out—and fast—how to cultivate public civic engagement for the 21st century.
CAN YOU SPOT THE SYMPTOMS? It’s 2020. Our nation and its denizens face major problems at home and abroad. With impeachment in our rear-view mirror, we’re now barreling toward what promises to be yet another divisive presidential election. Our confidence in the ability of the federal government (to say nothing of our state and local leaders) to function properly is incredibly low. According to the Pew Research Center, only 17 percent of Americans today say they can trust the government in Washington to do what is right. Moreover, our ability to hold government accountable appears to be crumbling. As citizens, we lack basic knowledge of our democratic institutions; a 2019 survey by the Annenberg Public Policy Center reveals that only two in five American adults can correctly name the three branches of government.
A renewed focus on civics education in K-12 schools would help. Just as with any subject in the curriculum, students need to learn how
Equally troubling as our lack of basic civic knowledge is our lack of appetite for civic engagement. It’s true that some of us are active; on any given day, our town meetings, 18
Accessibility, Compliance & Equity in Education
