How do we expect children to be productive citizens if they\ndo not understand the reason, the importance, and the necessity of a properly-functioning\nrepublic? My experience is a case in point. When I was going through the K-12\npublic school system, I took one, yes one, course on the American Government.\nIt was not required; I had to choose it as an elective. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Don Nielsen, program chair to the American Center for Transforming\nEducation, highlights one of the root causes of this deficiency in his book Every School<\/a><\/em>:\n\u201cUnfortunately, many believe our schools will improve with the more rigorous\nstandards and that was one of the drivers for the development of the Common\nCore. But, poor performing schools, like poor performing businesses, need much\nmore than standards or a budget in order to improve.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Common Core is a set of academic standards in mathematics\nand English language arts\/literacy (ELA)\u2014i.e. what a student should know and be\nable to do at the end of each grade. The standards were fashioned to ensure\nthat all students graduate from high school with the skills necessary to\nsucceed in college, career, and life. Pointing out the deficiencies already in\nplace in the Common Core is not the end all be all, however\u2014we must reform the\nreformed in order to produce productive citizens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As Nielsen states, \u201cThe Common Core deals only with\nEnglish\/Language Arts and math. We need standards for the other core subjects\nlike history, science, geography, etc.\u201d We have lost sight of the need to educate\nour children beyond the traditional academic core. This has led to serious\nnegative consequences in our nation. The evidence is inescapable. The\nfocus is on teaching, not learning. Millions of kids walk away from school long\nbefore they graduate. Millions more stay, but disengage. About a half-trillion dollars\na\nyear are invested in education, but most adults remember little and make\npractical use of even less of what they once learned in thousands of hours\nof instruction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The public seems to be increasingly aware of the deficiency\nin public education. In Politicians: The\nWorst Kind of people to Run the Government, Except for All the Others<\/a><\/em>,\nauthor and Discovery Institute founder, Bruce Chapman, writes, \u201cA survey by\nDiscovery Institute suggests that the public, including young people, agree\noverwhelmingly that \u2018American students are (not) being taught enough about\nAmerican history and government.\u2019\u201d The survey showed that 83 percent of the general\npublic holds that view. Among the\nyounger generation (those who are newly introduced to the government\ninteractions, ages 18-29), 71 percent also concur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Early American leaders understood paramount importance of conveying\nto young people what it means to be a citizen. As Thomas Jefferson asserted, \u201cA\ndemocratic republic could succeed only if the people as a whole were knowledgeable\nabout the institutions of self-government and participated in them.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Chapman believes that \u201celected and appointed officials\nshould make sure that the full story of American representative democracy is\nagain taught in common schools and state-support colleges.\u201d Schools \u201cshould examine the moral nature of citizenship and\npractical politics, as well as government structure and supposedly scientific\nmethods of scholarship in politics.\u201d In short, Chapman is calling for a\n\u201cgrounding in political philosophy, political and economic history, and\npolitical practice.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Nielsen agrees that \u201cthey [students] should take a course on civics to grasp the structure and function of government.\u201d This will aid in the process of \u201ctotal development\u201d of our children. He summarized, \u201c[This is] about teaching children how to live a happy and healthy life, as a productive citizen, in the twenty-first century.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n We must make civics a priority once again. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" How do we expect children to be productive citizens if they do not understand the reason, the importance, and the necessity of a properly-functioning republic? My experience is a case in point. When I was going through the K-12 public school system, I took one, yes one, course on the American Government. It was not required; I had to choose it as an elective. Don Nielsen, program chair to the American Center for Transforming Education, highlights one of the root causes of this deficiency in his book Every School: \u201cUnfortunately, many believe our schools will improve with the more rigorous standards and that was one of the drivers for the development of the Common Core. But, poor performing schools, like Read More ›<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":343,"featured_media":2316,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[],"coauthors":[1062],"class_list":["post-2315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-curriculum"],"acf":[],"author_names":["Bailey Takacs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/343"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2315"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2315"}],"wp:action-assign-author":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post\/2315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}