The U.S. News and 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. However, with polls showing record-low job approval ratings for Congress, a political landscape littered with extreme positions and recent tragic events that call into question assumptions about shared allegiance to American ideals, a return to civics education seems warranted now more than ever. U.S. democracy depends on citizens’ investment in the constitutional foundation on which the country stands. Beyond a simple belief, the laws, rights and responsibilities of U.S. democracy provide ways for citizens to improve our government and society – through voting, free speech, petitions, proposing new policy, peaceful protest, judicial system involvement and many other civic actions.”(more)