This letter originally appeared in the Wall Street Journal on May 20, 2015.
Regarding Sandra Day O’Connor and John Glenn’s “Teaching Better Civics for Better Citizens” (op-ed, May 13): Like math, English and other foundational subjects, civics belongs in college, too.
The National Association of Scholars is studying the ways state universities teach students about citizenship. Of the students we’ve interviewed, most say they’ve taken no government courses in college. They aren’t required, don’t seem relevant to students’ majors and appear redundant after high school. At the university that does require a course on national and state government, that course is treated as a chore.
America’s founders saw the university as a place where young adults would learn about the principles that undergird the free nation they established through great pains. We need to keep that vision alive by making citizens of students in K-12 and college.
Image: Huffington Post
