Who Killed Civic Education in America? The REAL Story is Worse Than You Think.

What is Civic Education?

Before I spill the tea on the REAL story of civic education in America's schools, let's begin with a fundamental question: “What is civic education?”

We can trace the roots of civic education back to the world’s first democracy in ancient Athens in the 5th Century B.C. Plato and other philosophers argued in favor of educating the public, claiming it was the only way for a new concept like citizenship to succeed.

Throughout human history, people ruled by kings and other authoritarian rulers were considered to be subjects instead of citizens.

This is why educating the public is so critical for the survival of democracy. I know this sounds a little dramatic, but here’s Thomas Jefferson saying essentially the same thing in a 1787 letter from the National Archives:

The REAL Story of Civic Education in America

Even though America’s founding fathers recognized the importance of educating the public in 1787, it took another sixty years to establish the free, standardized, universal education that we know today as the public school system. American public education was established in 1848 with the primary purpose of spreading civic education. According to a 2020 report from the Brookings Institution:

Education in early America was private, expensive, and usually reserved for the wealthy. In fact, less than half of young people between the ages of 5 and 19 attended school in 1840. However, the work of public education advocates like Massachusetts Secretary of Education Horace Mann helped to establish America’s first public education system shortly before the Civil War. Mann is well-known for saying, “Education then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of the conditions of men, the balance-wheel of the social machinery.”

Before the Civil War, most Americans agreed that citizens should be educated about how government works. However, at that time, citizenship was a very exclusive club. When the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified after the Civil war, it expanded the definition of citizenship to include formerly enslaved blacks and immigrants who completed the naturalization process. As citizens, these groups were now legally required to be educated as well.

Once some Americans realized the ramifications of this, Jim Crow segregation laws began spreading across the South like wildfire--with a particular focus on segregating schools. The same thing happened across the rest of the country as well. (Technically, it's called de facto segregation when people discriminate informally instead of changing the law.)

In this environment, segregated schools for students of color were routinely denied funding and provided with outdated books and teaching materials. After all, whites had little incentive to provide resources for schools that did not serve their students. However, this wasn’t the only reason for the crippling neglect of these schools. Starving them of resources was also an effective way to prevent communities of color from learning about their rights as American citizens and demanding equal treatment. 

For some reason, most people think this is where the story ends. However, it was only the beginning ...

By the 1940s, the rising communist threat made political leaders begin to reevaluate their perspective. Suddenly, the benefits of encouraging civic education among black and immigrant communities became clear. Civic instruction in schools would be the perfect way to boost patriotism in these communities while spreading anti-communist sentiments. This change of heart led to desperately needed funding increases for civic education in K-12 schools across the country. Unfortunately, it also created a permanent link between federal support and political propaganda in the minds of many Americans.

By the 1960s, liberal leaders began to push back against federal civic education efforts, claiming they were nothing more than indoctrination, manipulation of vulnerable communities, and efforts whitewash history.

By the time the Soviets launched Sputnik in 1957, conservatives scared of being outpaced in the areas of math and science and liberals opposed to civic education had become strange bedfellows. Their combined efforts led to catastrophic defunding of civic education programs nationwide in the 1960s.

The political scandals that came to light in the Vietnam era only made things worse. Americans’ trust in government simply evaporated, solidifying their opposition to any type of federal educational reforms. School curricula have been aggressively localized and resistant to top-down changes ever since. Remember, this crosses party lines. Americans of various political persuasions tend to react to any federal involvement in education with anger and suspicion.

These days, however, conservatives are primarily the ones claiming the government is trying to brainwash their children through the nation’s public schools. In response, parents have organized within their communities to ban books, fire educators, and prohibit certain topics from being discussed in classrooms.

To be clear, I understand that most of these parents are motivated by a misguided attempt to keep their kids safe, but everyone needs to understand that manipulating the information we teach our children in schools can lead to unintended consequences. History proves this!

Six decades ago, parental suspicion and liberal opposition led to a nationwide defunding of civic education. As a result, the majority of Americans today struggle to recall even the most basic facts about government and politics. To review the staggering statistics on this, read my post "How Much Do Americans Really Know About Government and Politics?"

Today's School Civics Requirements

In 2018, the Center for American Progress released a devastating report on the state of civic education in America. It began with this bleak description:

According to this report:

40 states and Washington, D.C., require students to complete a civic education course in order to graduate from high school. This actually sounds like good news if we ignore the other ten states. (Sorry, Alaska, Delaware, Kentucky, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington!)

However, if we look closer, we can see that only 9 of the states with civics requirements and D.C., require those courses to be a full year long. (Good job Colorado, D.C., Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Maryland, Nevada, North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia!)

This means that in the majority of America, we are only giving students a semester (that’s about 3.5 months) of civic education instruction. It’s pathetic! This is simply not enough time to teach students what they need to know about government, politics, and American political history.

The reality is, most Americans are graduating from high school without understanding our nation’s history or the rights and responsibilities that come with their citizenship.

Now, think about how old most students are when they graduate. Typically, it’s around eighteen, which is the same age they will become eligible to vote.

There’s no sugar-coating it, these facts are alarming; but can things really be as bad as they seem?

Join the Civics for All community to learn the answer to this question. We'll discuss the best path for moving forward in future posts. Leave a comment below. I want to hear your thoughts!

Remember, civic education helps everyone! It's time to think outside of the classroom!