Civics in Public Schools Won't Fix American Democracy

ON THE CAMPAIGN trail in May, Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy provocatively proposed raising the voting age to 25 for Americans who have not had any kind of civic experience, such as serving in the military or working as a first responder

- Christian Barnard

Ramaswamy doubled down on his brand of civic boosterism in June, when he tweeted that high school seniors should be required to pass the same civics exam administered to immigrants seeking citizenship. “The fact that this is controversial in America,” he said, “is a damning indictment of our Republic’s health.”

Ramaswamy, a 38-year-old entrepreneur, is riding a bipartisan wave of civics alarmism that has swelled recently due to increasing political polarization, lagging voter turnout compared to other developed nations, public ignorance of basic facts about American government, and a widespread perception that misinformation is increasing. But there are good reasons to question this narrative and to doubt that dialing up civics instruction would strengthen democracy. And the fact that deeply polarized Americans express bipartisan support for better civics education suggests they are not on the same page about what that should look like in public schools.

Critics like Ramaswamy blame policy makers and schools for de-emphasizing the study of how to participate in governing society. According to the Center for American Progress, only nine states and the District of Columbia require a full year of U.S. government or civics, with the rest requiring only a semester or nothing at all. In response, prominent legislators have proposed increasing federal funding for civics and even imposing federal civics standards on public schools.

An October 2022 poll by the nonprofit organization iCivics found that 79 percent of Americans think civics education is important and that 69 percent think it is more important than it was five years ago. In a January 2023