Progressive Change Needs Strong Civics Education
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More than 100 years ago, a commission, charged with examining how well high school students were being taught about government, politics and citizenship, found that a poor civics education linked to the plethora of bad politicians and weak public servants dominated turn-of-the-century American government.
Today, says Andrea Batista Schlesinger in a Point of View guest column at the AFL-CIO website, a renewed and strong emphasis on civics is even more vital in the 21st century.
We have to start caring a lot more about civics. If we want to ensure that a pro-worker progressive movement is in our future, we need to raise a generation of young people who feel connected to the institutions of their democracy, who understand how to navigate them and who understand from an early age that it is their right—and their responsibility—to question them.
Schlesinger is the author of The Death of Why: The Decline of Questioning and the Future of Democracy. She is on a leave of absence from the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy, where she served as executive director.
