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A sad truth to the civic education status of citizens

"What’s the Constitution? Don’t bother asking 70 percent of Americans: Alarming number of U.S. citizens don’t know basic facts about their own country.”

This was a headline in the United Kingdom’s Mail Online on March 21, 2011. The article that followed highlighted a Newsweek experiment in which 1,000 Americans were given the U.S. Citizenship test. More than a third, nearly 40 percent, failed.

People who come to this country and want to become citizens must take and pass this test; natural Americans don’t.

Not surprisingly, there’s been no miraculous improvement in the civic education status of a great many of our natural American citizen countrymen in the last two years.

And that is a travesty. A nation in which nearly 40 percent of its citizens are not familiar with the basic concepts and values of our constitutional democracy reflects a problematic future for that constitutional democracy.

Last week, retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, in a speech in Boise, Idaho, lamented the dismal state of our country’s civic education deficit. “The more I read and the more I listen, the more apparent it is that our society suffers from an alarming degree of public ignorance,” O’Connor said, according to The Idaho Statesman.

She said more than 60 percent of Americans can’t name a single Supreme Court justice, that only about a third can identify the three branches of government, and less than a third of eighth-graders “can identify the historical purpose of the Declaration of Independence” even though the title of the document pretty much explains the purpose.

O’Connor has worked for years to improve civic education in our schools and preparing young people to become informed and engaged citizens. Years ago, O’Connor and former Colorado Gov. Ray Romer served as co-chairs of the Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools. More Carlson recently, she founded icivics.org, a website for educators and students that features interactive learning about government.

Sadly, when it comes to informed civic engagement, the troublesome circumstance of an ill-educated and often disinterested and disengaged citizenry – of all ages – not only persists, it grows.

And it’s not just a problem at the federal level; for more than a decade, I’ve had the opportunity to visit with folks whose lack of understanding of the function and structure of both state and local governments hinders their ability to contribute to the continuing governmental conversation.

A couple of examples: When Bossier City proposed the construction of Century Tel Arena, many local residents suggested the money could be better spent building schools – and they had no idea that city funding and school funding generated from entirely different governing bodies. On another level, many folks will recall that local tax elections, or tax renewal elections, were held in April. For the sponsoring public bodies, this was a desired time to have an election because there generally wasn’t anything else on the ballot. Turnout was exceedingly low – and as expected, consisted largely of proponents of the tax legislation. (Fortunately, April elections have been discontinued by state legislative action.)

If a citizen doesn’t understand the local, state or federal governmental function and system, that citizen (and there are growing numbers of them) cannot effectively contribute to how that function and system operates to the advantage of the general citizenry.

Perhaps less distinguished than an O’Connor quote, one from the movie “The American President” nonetheless explains the fundamental problem of a civic deficit of a large segment of the American public: “America isn’t easy. America is advanced citizenship.”

Sustained advanced citizenship demands a citizenry that understands the history of this republic, the basic concepts and values underpinning our form of government – and participates often and actively in the decision – making that determines public issues and public affairs.

If O’Connor’s observations are any measure of whether we’ve advanced civic education and engagement since the Newsweek experiment, her measuring stick is both disappointing and disturbing.

In 1791, Thomas Jefferson wrote to George Mason: “I hope we have not labored in vain, and that our experiment will still prove that men can be governed by reason.”

Folks, “reason” is the result of an educated, active and engaged citizenry. In the absence of such, the framers of this magnificent “experiment” will have worked in vain. It is our legacy to know our governments and actively engage as citizens at all levels of government.

Marty Carlson, a freelance writer, has been covering local news for the past 13 years. She can be reached via email at m_carlso@bellsouth.net.

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