A Report Card on New York’s Civic Literacy

In this year\u27s State of the Union address, President Obama called for our generation\u27s Sputnik moment. Before 43 million viewers, he rallied Americans to meet the new challenges of the global economy, particularly those posed by China\u27s and India\u27s growing economic power. The productivity of American workers is unmatchable, he argued, bu their deficiency in science and math puts the nation at a severe disadvantage against the global economic competition. To overcome this, the President pledged government resources, including the training of 100,000 new science and math teachers. Of course all of this is positive. We urgently need a public commitment to science and math education of the sort that propelled us to our space race victory, putting men on the moon along the way. But with this economic focus, the President did not confront an equally urgent educational need central to our democracy, one that is at the very heart of why Americans are falling behind: civic literacy. As former Harvard University President Derek Box observed in 2002: Civic education in the public schools has been almost totally eclipsed by a preoccupation with preparing the workforce of a global economy. As multiple national studies and our findings in this report all demonstrate, few Americans have the requisite knowledge to engage in a democratic policy discussion. Few know anything about the three branches of government, their functions, or how an idea becomes a law. And even fewer would know how to effect the changes recommended by the President, or those called for in this report