Nearly four in five American 8th graders score below proficient in civics, the federal government spends roughly 100 times less per student on the subject than on STEM and about one-third of Americans under 30 say democracy is no longer a viable system of government.
A new report from the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) argues those trends are connected — and warns they pose a particular threat to Jews and to support for Israel.
The report, titled “Teaching American Democracy: Understanding Who We Are as Americans and Why,” is authored by Richard Kahlenberg, director of PPI’s American Identity Project, and Lief Lin, a PPI policy analyst. It calls for rebranding civics as “American Democracy” and requiring three years of it in high school, the same number of years that is required in most states for math and reading education.
