The recent challenging election season has many people thinking about the need for civic education. Ensuring that our citizens – especially those who are learning their way in our nation – have the tools be both active and informed citizens is more critical than ever. Here’s a sampling of what the journalists, pundits, and educators have to say.
Starting with an editorial by our own Barbara Rost:
Civics Education Is Vital to A Democracy
A well-informed, active citizenry is what makes us strong. It is what sets us apart on the world stage. In election years, it makes for a smooth transition from one administration to the next.
Education Secretary John King Calls for More Civic Education
What’s also needed are citizens who will work with others and vote strategically to demand changes…
Is Trump’s Victory the Jump-Start Civics Education Needed?
Public 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…
We talk a lot about civic education. Here’s how to get kids really engaged in it.
We talk a lot about civic education, usually about how little of it too many students get in school. … here’s a different kind of discussion: how kids are actually being engaged in it.
Knowledge of how government works is declining, prompting talk of civics education, voter tests
[V]ery contentious elections … tend to polarize people further and confuse some on how much power a president actually has.
http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2016/nov/07/knowledge-of-how-government-works-is-declining-pro/
Restore civics lessons to America’s classrooms: Erik M. Jensen (Opinion)
We need to get cracking, because the longer we ignore basic civics education, the more difficult it will be to revive the subject.
http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/index.ssf/2016/11/restore_civics_lessons_to_amer.html
Souter, Gregg Call For Renewed Focus on Civics Education
The pair offered plenty of explanations for the current state of political discourse – which, in their view, is too often driven by polarized talking points instead of thoughtful discussions on issues of substance. At the root of those issues, they argued, is a decades-long erosion of the way students learn about the political process.
http://nhpr.org/post/souter-gregg-call-renewed-focus-civics-education