WFYI recently reported on a new business alliance focused on improving civic education. It’s a welcome development.
The Indiana Business Alliance for Civics will provide resources and work with businesses to encourage employees to register and vote, and will provide education about civics. It will also connect businesses with schools, to encourage civics education. The alliance is led by Business For America, a national nonprofit.
As long-time readers of this blog know, civics education has been a primary focus for me for a long time. During my tenure at IUPUI (now IU-Indy), I founded the Center for Civic Literacy, which explored ways to reverse Americans’ really shocking lack of knowledge about the most basic elements of their Constitutional, political and legal systems.
A recent Substack attributed the lack of emphasis on civics–and really, all of the humanities–to the growing emphasis on STEM, which the authors traced back to the shock of Sputnik. As they wrote,
it’s not enough for students only to study math, technology, and the sciences. It’s not enough for our country to have the top earners, or the top innovators of weapons and warfare. We all need to be educated citizens, knowledgeable about history and civics as well as science and technology.
If you think the over-emphasis on STEM and the neglect of civics is overstated, you need only follow the money.
At the start of the Biden administration, the federal government was spending more than $50 per student on STEM education, versus only $0.50 per student per year on civic education (and even that represents a tenfold increase from a few years earlier). You get what you pay for: on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) civics assessment, American students have been scoring pretty dismally for decades now. And as of August 2025, the Trump administration has cut $12 billion for K-12 education (including some STEM programs) and merged funds for civic education with other areas, so that some states may not spend any money on civic education at all.
One paragraph really says it all–it explains how our woeful lack of civic knowledge has contributed to the success of the MAGA/Trump assault on America’s democratic institutions.
Democracy is reliant on a culture of civic participation. Governing ourselves takes work and commitment. So if we’re going to renovate our constitutional democracy and institutions in the United States to work better for everyone, we also need to do some serious work on our culture of citizenship, to make sure that we are ready to play our part well. Civic education is how we restore and grow that culture.
When you don’t know how the system is supposed to work, you are a prime target for disinformation.
I attribute the over-emphasis on STEM and the corresponding lack of concern for civic literacy to what is a hot-button issue for me: the widely-accepted belief that education is basically a consumer good–that it is indistinguishable from job training. Ratings of colleges focus on the earnings of graduates, not the depth of knowledge communicated in classrooms–a fatal misunderstanding of the educational mission. Not only is genuine education a far broader benefit to the individual, it is a public good that builds the capacity of the nation to govern itself.
As Robert Reich wrote in a 2022 essay,
Such an education must encourage civic virtue. It should explain and illustrate the profound differences between doing whatever it takes to win, and acting for the common good; between getting as much as one can get for oneself, and giving back to society; between seeking personal celebrity, wealth, or power, and helping build a better society for all. And why the latter choices are morally necessary.
Finally, civic virtue must be practiced. Two years of required public service would give young people an opportunity to learn civic responsibility by serving the common good directly. It should be a duty of citizenship.
A concerted emphasis on civic virtue might even begin to change the nature of America’s social incentives, which now are disproportionately weighted toward rewarding greed and celebrity. And–again, as regular readers know–I have long been an advocate for a year or two of mandatory public service.
It’s a positive sign when business leaders recognize the dangers of our civic deficit and take action to combat it. If and when we defeat MAGA’s assault on the principles that made America America, strengthening civics instruction should be a very high priority.
They made higher education a means to a better living. When it didn’t happen that way, especially in the 80’s, people decided it was useless. And here we are. Everyone thinks they are a cowboy.
If I recall, Mitch Daniels collaborated with Gallup to conduct a survey of alums from colleges across the country, aiming to assess their quality of life and salaries after graduation. Seeing that Purdue focuses on STEM, and knowing Mitch, he likely had an ulterior motive – pushing Purdue and its highly paid STEM programs. I doubt civic literacy was one of the survey questions.
In the above post, this sentence stood out: “Governing ourselves takes work and commitment.” Wasn’t that the point of Franklin’s response when asked what kind of government the Founders created: “A republic if you can keep it.”
He also believed that all governments eventually degenerate into despotism because the people become corrupted, and only a despot can take control. Well, Franklin was a very wise and prophetic individual. We quickly transitioned into an oligarchic rule. Have we entered into a despotic phase?
“Franklin believed that a republic relies on its citizens to be virtuous and responsible. If the people lose their civic virtue, become selfish, or become too easily controlled, they would create the conditions for despotism to take hold.”
As Sheila eludes, we lost what we had a long time ago. Can we get it back?
p.s. I am reading about Ken Martin’s strategy proposals for the DNC in the 2026 midterms, and their focus is on “healthcare.” Not universal healthcare for all, which resonates with all Americans, but restoring Medicaid to the millions who will lose their insurance because of Trump’s OBBB. The problem with this strategy is that the Medicaid cuts start after the 2026 elections. If this is their strategy and we have a midterm election, the Dems will get destroyed because idiots run the DNC.
We may well have idiots running the DNC.
Many of us, here, it seems, grew up in a time when the idea of a “Classic” education was at the fore of the thunking about education: one which would help to mold something like a “complete” individual, versed in an array of areas, able to hold a conversation with anyone. That, of course, would include civics.
It is nice to see this new project.
I’ll stop there.
If I recall correctly, Thomas Jefferson promoted public education as a necessity for republican/democratic government. A people that lack an education in civics – and I would include history in civics – would fall for demagogues.
I sincerely hope The IN Business Alliance for Civic Education is not aligned with this “civic education” program promoted by our Lt. Governor, who regularly supports policies that undermine our democracy. Please check out his FB page. I am unable to copy his announcement in this comment.
Beckwith’s ” civic education” program is sponsored by a something called “The Coalition for a Better Indiana”.
Two thoughts. One, I’m curious how much time and money other Democratic nations spend on civic education. Two, I’ve long been a proponent and advocate for mandatory two years of national service for all 18 year olds. This could be military service or community service in areas like parks and communities.
I don’t know what the meaningful measure of total human knowledge is, but we have an approximation of it in the content of the WWW.
All humans like to consider themselves competent and knowledgeable. Still, the truth is that the mastery of the total of human knowledge by any single one of us is a pitiful little of it.
What we don’t realize is that the potential of AI is not to match the “intelligence” of any one of us but all of us.
Reaching that goal will be a first in our history, and it began with the World Wide Web, which has enabled the curation of human knowledge from every corner of the world.
What is guaranteed is that AI will give the most knowledgeable person in the world a place from which to access all that they don’t know.
STEM, civics, and whatever all other people know.
The remaining question to be answered is who will control it?
I wonder if the “education” provided will be from Prager U?
TRUTH!!
Here’s a proposal that can get us started! I propose that any school that uses a prageru video has to follow it with an episode of, “Adam Ruins Everything.”. That can ensure that some of what we feed the kids is true. I’m pretty sure there’s a good episode about Christopher Columbus, without any support for the tradition of slavery.
Report on another state’s situation:https://ncnewsline.com/2025/08/31/nc-lags-in-civic-engagement-gaps-in-civics-learning-part-of-the-problem/
The results…
A couple of comments: The Sunday New York Times includes a full page ad from Prager University that invites the reader to take the “Exam” that they wrote for the State of Oklahoma, and includes the test. I read it and have to say that some of the questions are legitimate. However, I noticed that most of them were phrased in such a manner that the correct answer is hinted in the question. I consider that to be a violation of basic testing protocol..
Second comment: When I was going to school we had to memorize addition and multiplication tables, learn to diagram sentences, etc. A friend who was at lunch with me today noted that we don’t need to do that anymore because AI will give us the answers. To which I respponded; “how will we recognize an error in AI’s answer if we don’t have the basic knowledge ourselves? It was like 40 years ago when my children were told that a calculator was required for elementary school math and I went against regulation and told the school that I would forbid my children having a calculator until then had learned the basic tables. If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there. If you have no idea what the correct answer should be, any answer will look correct.
We did have civics education in the 50’s. I am ashamed that I wasn’t paying enough attention to what my children were being taught, or not taught, in the late 70’s and early 80’s because they weren’t getting enough civics. And my grandchildren in the 21st century seemingly got none.
Franklin and Jefferson were right to be worried about their experiment!
The missing point remains to be addressed. Willingness to participate involves more that exposure. With faces stuck in phones and laptops, earbuds in firmly in place, many are willfully ignorant. The knowledge is at their fingertips, a touch of the keyboard or command to an automated listener brings it instantly to eyes and ears. Does it make a difference? Only when the will drives the actions and needs. Unfortunately, constant entertainment, like Rome of old, distracts and diverts feeding the addiction.
I have long criticized the lack of civic education in grade school and high school. These classes have too often been assigned to a coach or other person who has no education in history or political science. It starts in grade school, folks, not college.
Two quick points
An old sociology professor once told us that college was about teaching crap detection, but something I read recently in Science (editorial or policy forum) suggested that we need to do that much earlier.
I can’t remember who said it (not Einstein) but the line goes something like “Everything that can be measured doesn’t necessarily have value; everything of value cannot necessarily be measured”.
We go for the easily measurable cash value rather than trying to figure out how to measure better citizenship and public good.
I hope it’s civic education, not indoctrination in the wonders of unfettered capitalism. Is no other entity joining the business alliance in this venture? I can’t help but be skeptical. There are curriculum guides, etc., on offer by various groups that were funded by the NEH while it was still giving grants that could be very useful. I have at least two websites with great, meaning very useful and easily usable materials…. I hope the business alliance looks beyond its own members for perspectives on civic education. Remember the Powell Memo!!!
I really can’t stand the dependency that we have created around getting from point a to point b without using a map ourselves. It scares the crap out of me to think about a person being unable to read a map! I don’t trust a fancy dancy machine to tell me where I’m going.