U.S. News & World Report – Anna Saavedra
“Civics classes have long been a mainstay of American education. In fact, the original purpose of U.S. education was to shape citizens who share a common ideal and have the knowledge, skills and inclination to uphold the tenets of democracy. But in more recent decades, the teaching of civics and other social studies courses has hit hard times in most states, driven in part by accountability systems that reward schools for math and reading scores, leading many schools to shift time away from other subjects in response…U.S. democracy depends on citizens’ investment in the constitutional foundation on which the country stands…Yet we are not born knowing how to engage in these civic activities…If not through high-quality, school-based civic education, how will young people gain the skills, knowledge and motivation necessary to effectively participate in civic life?”(more)