America’s Civic Education Gap: What Can Business Do?
2022 yielded mixed results for K–12 civic education. The bipartisan Civics Secures Democracy Act (S.879 / H.R.1814), a priority for BFA and its member companies, was introduced in Congress but never came to a vote. On the other hand, the omnibus spending bill passed at the end of last year increased federal investment in civic education from $7.75 million to $23 million, making important progress on the issue.
Today, fewer than half of Americans can name all three branches of government. Many people do not have a basic understanding of how the government works, the Bill of Rights, and the responsibilities of being a citizen. Even with the increased funding, the federal government still invests a mere 50 cents per K–12 student in civic education compared to $54 for STEM. Clearly our country has a lot of work to do.
On January 26th, Business for America gathered leaders in the civics and business communities to discuss the importance of improving Americans’ civic knowledge to strengthen our country’s social cohesion and economic competitiveness. The conversation focused on recent developments in Congress and current efforts at the state level to increase funding for civic education and mobilize business partners into action. The following are some excerpts from our three panelists.
Kristin Cambell, PACE
Kristin Cambell, CEO of PACE (Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement), focused on data that demonstrate the negative impacts of underinvestment in civics. “There are gaps in access to who gets civic education experiences and those gaps often occur along the lines of race and class, young people from lower income families, in both urban and rural areas, etc. As a result they have diminished levels of civic engagement and participation which lead to disparities in access to participation and then self-perpetuates into existing societal divisions and inequities across our nation.” She continued, “The most alarming thing that I see in data is the distinction between whether people had civic education or not is that people who did not have civic education do not believe that there’s anything that they can do to ensure that democracy works.”
Regarding some of the pushback that civic education has received, Campbell pointed out that, “Many of those narratives would have us believe that the public thinks that civic education is a trojan horse for CRT (which is not true). But recent polling from a number of groups points to data that demonstrate that parent voters in both parties and across income levels do want civic education… They want it to be a higher emphasis in the curriculum and they want more public funding to support it.”
Louise Dubé, iCivics
Louise Dubé, executive director of iCivics, made the case for business support. “Civic education is directly beneficial to businesses in particular because businesses are so involved in their communities. It is important to them to have a well-functioning society that solves its problems.”
“Our goal is to have at least 10 states where the vast majority of students graduate ‘Civic Ready’ by 2026. That’s achievable. We have seen an enormous increase in the number of state legislation filed over the last four years from roughly 20 to 80 bills to over 250 this year, and we anticipate all of the legislation that we support and advocate for is bipartisan.”
“Many of these bills support informational literacy goals. I think this is an area where the business community should also be engaged, which is the detection of mis- and disinformation… You cannot have a history of civic education programs without being able to tell what’s true from what’s new and true.“
Chris Conner, Allstate
Chris Conner, director of political advocacy at Allstate, started with a quote from their CEO Tom Wilson who is particularly passionate about the topic. “Whatever the reasons, the slow retreat from civic education certainly has led to an embarrassing lack of knowledge about American institutions and processes. Civic engagement is the air that keeps democracy alive. We all need a refresher course on civics from children’s school through leaders of business and government.”
Conner continued, “I just think that’s a particularly eloquent and salient way of expressing Tom’s philosophy and also how we trickle that down through the organization.”
“There are competencies that employees develop from going through some civic education program that would also apply to school age kids as well. Data suggests that those who have a civic education background tend to be more collaborative, they tend to be smarter consumers of information, they can make distinctions, they probably have better critical thinking skills, they assumably would have more tolerance for different ideas.”
“So how do you see that showing up within Allstate’s workforce? At the core of it is problem solving. That’s really what a democracy is designed to do at its base. Create people who understand how to solve problems with people who have a range of views.”
Watch the full video on YouTube.
To learn more and get involved, visit bfa.us/civics.
