How We Can Repair Our Democracy and Build a More Perfect Union
America’s civic education crisis is not new, but it is becoming increasingly dire. New data released by the Department of Education—known as the Nation’s Report Card and widely regarded as the best assessment of how well we are educating our future citizens—paints a stark and worrying picture. Eighth graders scored worse on the history section this year than in in any year since the test was first administered on the subject in 1994, and civics scores dropped for the first time since it was first tested in 1998, with less than one in every four students scoring proficient.
The political polarization that poisons our politics is only deepening this crisis. When our political leaders wage “school wars” over what historical models can and cannot be taught in the classroom, they signal to students that certain views are simply not worth considering. When our media promote the loudest and most antagonistic voices, students learn that shouting is more effective than listening. And when parents refuse to engage arguments with which they disagree, students come to believe that listening to opposing viewpoints is a sign of weakness rather than civic strength. Small wonder, then, that according to one recent UCLA-UC Riverside study, more than two-thirds of high school principals reported substantial political conflict over hot-button issues inside their classrooms.
If we fail to teach our children the principles of our democracy and the habits of civil dialogue necessary to sustaining it, we will endanger the American project. Instead of building a better future by finding common ground, they will only slide deeper into partisanship and extremism.
Fortunately, there is a way out, but it requires a new way of thinking about civic education. To solve this educational crisis, we need to teach students not just history and civics, but the virtues of democratic citizenship, beginning with the ability to consider arguments with which we disagree and to engage in dialogue and deliberation with people with views different from our own. In practice, this means giving students a rigorously non-partisan education in American history and civics, including exposing them to the best arguments on all sides of the major constitutional debates past and present and giving them the tools to make up their own minds.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/how-we-can-repair-our-democracy-and-build-a-more-perfect-union/ar-AA1aNfhO
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