Citizenship: The 'Lost Social Mandate of the Public School'
In 1995, my colleague and I won a grant competition conducted by the U.S. Information Agency that supported a two-year project dedicated to the reform of civic education in the high schools of the Czech Republic. The idea behind our initiative was to target the school as an agency for the encouragement and sustenance of democracy and to help Czech educators develop the curriculum materials, teaching strategies, and organizational schemes needed to bring civic consciousness and democratic practice to the school experience. Given the fragile nature of democracy in the Czech Republic, the USIA showed wisdom in identifying the school as a source for the nation's democratic stability.
When our friends and colleagues learned about our project, the response was generally congratulatory, but it often also included a question resembling "Why aren't you or others doing something like that in the United States?" The thrust of the question testified to some perceived need to focus on citizenship education in America. My initial reaction to the question emphasized the fact that there are many groups working on citizenship education in American public education. The Center for Civic Education in Calabasas, Calif., and the National Council for the Social Studies in Washington, for instance, have been leaders in generating some national discussion on citizenship education, even on national standards in the area of citizenship. On other fronts, the U.S. Department of Education has supported studies by the National Assessment of Educational Progress on civic skills and knowledge, and various commentators, including scholars such as R. Freeman Butts, have written eloquently about the primacy of citizenship in the school experience.
But despite these positive signs, I had to acknowledge the fact that citizenship education has not exactly thrived in the present-day American public school curriculum and that some examination of the problem might help us understand...
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