Tag Archives: civic education

Back to Democracy Basics, Part III

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON  |  SEPT 22, 2026

“No republic can survive when its citizens lose faith in their own ability to govern themselves and instead view citizenship as merely consuming services provided by someone else.”
— Richard Hines, writing in The Fulcrum, July 4, 2026

There’s truth in that.

American citizens have lost faith in their ability to govern because it seems they no longer know how to govern or simply no longer have the will to try. It’s understandable on both counts.
Citizens today can’t make themselves heard or expect responses.

Why? Because of the exasperating din of personal rancor, partisan warfare, righteous intransigence that permeates most aspects of governance, and the intense competition for lawmakers’ attention, much of it unfair.

There are many logical reasons for how we got to where we are and many more lame excuses for it. There’s plenty of blame to go around, too. But I believe at the bottom of it all is our abandonment of the core values underlying democratic republicanism that I’m examining in this series of columns.

Civics education is one of those core values that should never be trifled with. But it has been. The deterioration of civics and history education is shameful. Continue reading →

It’s Time to Make Civics Great Again

BY Louise Dube’ and Shawn Healy, Ripon Society Forum  |  APR 19, 2025 

The Founders would be appropriately bewildered by many facets of modern life in year 250 of the American experiment, but they’d probably be downright shocked by how far we have let our approach to educating young people stray from their original vision.

They believed unequivocally that the point of education in America should be to impart knowledge to young people that would help them be responsible citizens, contributing members of their communities, and ultimately, defenders of constitutional democracy. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison extolled civic learning as a bulwark against tyranny. And President George Washington, in his final Annual Address to Congress in 1796, said that the “education of our Youth in the science of Government” would prepare them to be “future guardians of the liberties of the Country.” Continue reading →

Introducing A Civic State of Mind

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON  |  JAN 30, 2025

A new year has dawned and so will a new opportunity to reshape the way we are governed and clean up the way we conduct our politics.

There is hope among many Americans that the new Congress will be better than the one just concluded, which had among the worst records in history.

The reason for the optimism may be grounded in pessimism: How can it get any worse? Public trust in government is in the tank.

The governing crisis we are in is not new, of course. The crisis has been creeping up on us like nasty vines that wind their way around the tree, in this our body politic, grown from roots dating back almost a half century. Continue reading →