Debate: Are Schools Failing at Civic Education – And is That Driving Today’s Political Divide?

Is the failure of civic education the primary cause of ideological partisanship in society? That was the question in a debate Thursday hosted by Pepperdine University and The Steamboat Institute, centered around a question that’s becoming increasingly relevant across Los Angeles and all of California:

Are schools failing at civic education — and is that driving today’s political divide?

The timing is especially interesting as California students are failing so significantly in math and English, the state ranks at the bottom of most of the 50 states. On the 2024 NAEP eighth grade reading exam, a meager 28 percent of California students taking the test scored at the proficient level. The story was even worse in math. On the 2024 NAEP eighth grade math exam, only 25 percent—just one in four—California students scored at the proficient mark.

This raises questions about whether students are being equipped for informed civic engagement. At the same time, campuses across Southern California have seen rising protests and tensions over political speech, which has really put a spotlight on issues around civil discourse.

The debate between two very different professors who are seeing these trends firsthand in the classroom, is a back and forth on whether the roots of today’s political division start in schools — or somewhere else.

“Leaders for a polarized political environment need to understand civic virtue and how public policy is made,” said Pete Peterson, Dean of Pepperdine University, in his opening.

Peterson said at Pepperdine one of the texts they use is Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, and noted that Tocqueville regularly remarked on the civic knowledge he witnessed in meeting Americans.

“One wonders if we are still that way,” Peterson said.

He said even as classical civics is still taught in many schools across the country, new schools of civic education are popping up all across America. “Civics education in the U.S. is important, but with the new movement in Civics Education, are we doing it right?” he asked.

Jennifer Schubert-Akin, Chairman and CEO of The Steamboat Institute, addressed the rising distrust in institutions, and said many are asking, “how did we get here?” Civics Education she said, has eroded or fragmented over time.

“‘Is the decline of Civics Education?’ the primary driver of today’s partisanship?” she asked. “Or is it merely one factor among many?”

The debaters were:

Professor Joshua Dunn: has a PhD from the University of Virginia, and serves as Executive Director of the Institute of American Civics at the University of Tennessee Knoxville.

Professor Timothy Messer-Kruse: earned his Ph.D. in History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is Professor of Cultural Studies at Bowling Green State University in Ohio.

Prof. Dunn, in his opening statement noted that in the debates he’s done with the Steamboat Institute, he’s always been challenged and there needs to be more of this today, he said.

“Americans today do not simply disagree – we distrust, we caricature, we assume the worst, we demonize. Increasingly, citizens do not just think the other side is wrong, they think the other side is dangerous. That’s not normal political disagreement, or healthy disagreement, that’s ideological hostility.”

“The question before us is ‘what is driving this?'”

“So I argue that the primary cause is the failure of civic education – not because civic education explains everything, but because civic education explains the foundation of the condition that allows polarization to grow.”

He explained that people don’t just dislike their opponents, they misunderstand them. “And misunderstanding fuels hostility.”

“Where do those misperceptions come from?”

“Decades of political research shows citizens with lower political knowledge are prone to those political errors or stereotyping and misinformation.”

“When scholars talk about experts, they mean citizens who can answer basic questions. ‘What are the three branches of government? What does Congress do? How does Federalism work?'”

Dunn says those with higher civic knowledge are more accurate in their understanding of public policy, while those with lower civic knowledge are more likely to rely on group identity.

“So when citizens don’t understand how the system works, they cannot evaluate claims about it. They can’t properly situate political disagreement, and so they fall back on identity and suspicion.”

“Ignorance does not produce neutrality, it produces distortion.”

“Civic knowledge increases political tolerance,” and a willingness to engage with political opponents.

“Civic knowledge does not inflame division, it moderates it, Dunn continues. “The problem is that schools are not prioritizing that knowledge,” Dunn says.

He noted that 80% of teachers surveyed prioritize “tolerance” over civics, which was prioritized at only 53%. He referred to this as “deprioritizing” civics while promoting “tolerance.”

Only 1 in 4 students demonstrate basic proficiency in civics. let that simmer – only 25% of students.

And Dunn says, that does not disappear with age.

Without basic civics knowledge, citizens are not able to distinguish normal political conflict from genuine political crisis.

“A Democracy cannot function if citizens cannot disagree without demonizing one another, and citizens cannot disagree constructively if they cannot understand the system in which they are participating.”

That is a failure of education.

Prof. Timothy Messer-Kruse noted that academicians do not get the opportunity to debate as frequently as perhaps they should.

He offered a few caveats: “I do believe in the rule of law. I do believe in the Bill of Rights. I do believe in the importance of Democracy. But I don’t believe in Civics.”

He said that it’s not the failure of Civics that leads to polarization, but the success of civics that leads to polarization. “Polarization has been happening on its own regardless what teachers or academics has done for over a century – and will continue to do so, perhaps.”

“I do believe that teaching might be a possible intervention.”

“We look at every problem as having a solution in scholarship and teaching. We have a built in bias of the favor or a solution that aligns with our skills.”

“We see every social problem as needing to be educated into a solution.”

Messer-Kruse said he doesn’t see polarization lending itself to that and he listed some reasons:

1) civics has been taught for quite a long time, but polarization has been happening since the 1970s.

2) Some sort of decline in civics teaching, or ability to come up with a civics curriculum, is behind what has happened since the 1970s, since over the course of the 20th century, civics has been taught and emphasized.

He says polarization isn’t as much of a problem “like a social problem that needs a specific or artificial solution,” as it is a process.

On his skepticism of civics, “there have been a number of times over the past 100 years when the effectiveness of civics has been tested.”

“The first time was in 1935 to 1938 when the New York regents commissioned an extensive study of New York State schools.”

The 3-year study of 22,584 students concluded that “civics was a null factor” as commitment to voting, or civic principles.

This type of study was done again in 1953 to 1956 by NYU which looked at two years of student data. It found students who took a third semester of civics became involved in “action civics,” getting involved more politically in campaigns. Yet at the end of the study, the study author had to admit that “no significant change of attitude was produced by any of the courses.”

Messer-Kruse said other studies from the 1960s, 1970s, and studies up to last year that have shown “effectively no appreciable statistical correlation between the amount of civics education, or the kind of civics education, and students’ commitment to either voting, or a commitment to the principles to we all hold dear.”

“I think the burden is on civics to show its effectiveness. It seems to have failed so far,” he concludes.

The Debate

“Civics education was developed in 1840 and is a twist on the previous moral education, to instill certain values under the guise of partisan and political neutrality, which it really can’t carry,” Prof. Messer-Kruse said.

“Civics education really started earlier [than 1840],” Prof. Dunn countered, “at the University of Virginia to prepare students to be leaders. But, even before that, so students could understand their rights and duties of being a citizen.”

“I would also include how America has changed over time. You can’t be a properly educated citizen without knowing about the Civil War, progressive era, World War II, the Civil Rights movement, which should all be included in civics education.”

When asked about whether civics education has moved to a more secular framework, Prof. Messer-Kruse called it a “catecistic list of facts, like the answer to ‘how many branches of government are there?’ is supposed to be three, but that is incorrect. There are more than three branches of government,” he said.

“If we think of government as a structure of power and rules, there is the Federal Reserve, which spent $9 trillion in purchasing securities and financial services since 2016, and none of that was Democratically decided. The federal reserve is a government unto its own.”

He included the Department of Defense – Department of War also as a government unto itself. Another he said are those who contribute to political campaigns, as well as “unregulated” dark money.

“Most people don’t live in the three branches world because power affects them in many other ways,” Prof. Messer-Kruse said. “There is cognitive dissonance, just as if there might be with  moral instruction when you are told to behave in certain ways that stems contrary to your proclivities.”

Prof. Messer-Kruse said “students should only be asked ‘What is power? How does power manifest? What is government? How is government organized?’ We should try to do this as an investigation instead of as a sort of ‘settled conclusion.'”

Moderator McGhee-White asked Prof. Dunn, “What specific aspects of a civics education are lacking and how would improving those gaps lead to decreased partisanship or polarization?”

Prof. Dunn, who works with K-12 teachers, says they report they never have enough class time. “That would be a basic matter, to devote more time to civics” instead of other non-discipline subjects.

“We should ask ‘How many branches of government does the Constitution establish?’ and move on, Prof. Dunn added. “Even those things have a salutatory effect on people’s attitudes and behavior. If we could just increase that it would go a long way in helping the situation we are in today.”

Moderator McGhee-White posited to Prof. Messer-Kruse “Older Americans tend to be more polarized, while younger Americans don’t.”

Prof. Messer Kruse said polarization is between socio-economic classes, and runs opposite to what most people would presume. “All of the data shows people on the higher socio-economic spectrum are subject to more political polarization than those at the bottom of the socio-economic spectrum” who don’t vote.

“The presumption is that they don’t care or are alienated from the system.” He says “non-voters are motivated in the sense that they see voting as irrelevant to the problems they face – that they are not given realistic policy options in the two-party system that reflect their reality.”

Messer-Kruse claimed that “polarization is an effect of education,” and “civics education is a form of indoctrination just as the old ‘moral’ education was indoctrination.”

“So those who are not exposed to it [civics education] are less indoctrinated or polarized.”

This caused Prof. Dunn to respond: “Civics education is the foundational factor through which all these others are mediated. That’s why civics education and civics knowledge is so important.”

Dunn continued: “Prof. Messer-Kruse pointed out the socio-economic class and polarization – that it’s a generational issue. So younger people who don’t make as much money don’t vote. But as they move along and make more money, tend to start voting. That’s not so much a product of socio-economic class; it’s just their position in life.”

He says it’s the same reason college students don’t vote as much, and noted that “class does not have a lot of statistical power when predicting the voting behavior of American citizens.”

Moderator McGhee White asked about identity politics contributing to polarization.

Prof. Messer-Kruse claimed that the political parties sort along racial identity, and “the huge group that doesn’t vote is because neither political party represents them.”

McGhee White asked if that would improve with increased civics education.

“No, it would exacerbate that,” Prof. Messer-Kruse said. “Because the reason they ‘vote no’ is the system does not serve their interests and community, and offers no policy choices to make any sense in their lives.”

(at this point I questioned if he is talking about legal/illegal immigrants, because he doesn’t come out and say this)

He says civics education is irrelevant to most people because it doesn’t represent what power means in most people’s lives.

Prof. Dunn refuted this. “We have lots of data showing that non-voters look basically like all voters. So if you have everyone show up, the outcomes would not change.”

“There isn’t evidence showing they stay home saying ‘well, this system doesn’t represent me.'” Dunn said it is not because of race. “Plenty of variables go into the the sorting. And part of the issue is polarization is not driven by any coherent ideology – just pure tribalism. Conservatives and liberals changing their positions is based on who is in power.”

Moderator McGhee White: “Including civic education encourages better civic behavior and there is a direct correlation. A 2023 study showed civic education did not lead to better youth turnout. Why should we expect it to affect meaningfully partisan divides?”

Prof. Dunn: “Because those are different things. We know that young people vote – when they get older. We have data that shows with more civic education, you are more tolerant, and less polarized. Just because it doesn’t mean they aren’t going to vote, doesn’t mean it doesn’t affect polarization or toleration. Voting is something different.”

He notes that the weakest measurement of political engagement can be how involved you are in your community or engaged in civic associations.

Moderator McGhee White: “Could it be that civic education is a victim of polarization and not its cause?”

“I don’t think they are directly related,” Prof. Messer-Kruse said. “Civics education and polarization are simply in different universes.”

He goes on to say that polarization happened for its own social reasons. “Most importantly, the decision in the 1960’s by the Republican Party to embrace the politics of White Supremacy in response to the civil rights movement, and thereby form a new national coalition to win elections.”

“We know this was clearly a planned effort of the political party, and we know Democrats were happy to align in the other way as well. And both parties by the 1970s had embraced the politics of identity, each in a different way.”

Prof. Dunn asked “is polarization making people not want to have civics education?”

McGhee White noted ” we see this in the different civics education but in Red and Blue states.”

Prof. Dunn said in Tennessee and the university he is with, there is overwhelming support for civics education in the state Legislature. “There was a general recognition that something is not going right and part of it is driven by this lack of knowledge that our students have, and that adults have once they get out of school.”

“We did a survey at the Institute of American Civics to see how many Tennesseans know that we have our own Constitution in Tennessee. It’s 50%, and also 50% across the country.”

Dunn said this is significant because in every state but Delaware citizens have to vote on ballot initiative amendments to their Constitution. “And here in California, you have to vote on them a lot. What that means is there are a lot of people voting on a Constitutional Amendment who don’t know they are voting on a Constitutional Amendment. They are treating it like any other part of the political process.”

“This is unhealthy, at a bare minimum,” Prof. Dunn added. “The more you can equip citizens with knowledge about how their system of government works, the more capable they will be. It also increases their own sense of efficacy.”

“I think across the country people realize that we haven’t done what we needed to – just imparting basic knowledge in students, particularly K-12, so that when they get out, they know how to navigate the political process.”

Moderator McGhee White: “If you could implement one policy to reduce ideological division, what would it be and why would it work better than just bolstering civics education?”

Prof. Messer-Kruse said you couldn’t do just one thing without political and social changes. He added, “neither political party seems to represent the interests of the majority of the public.”

“If there was one thing I could change, I’d like all partisans on all sides, to stop assuming that their opponents are motivated out of ignorance. This is why we get bipartisan support for civics education is because both liberals and conservatives think their opponents are stupid and need to be educated. But in fact, I think most people are pretty intelligent and pretty knowledgable and pretty aware of their surroundings.”

He said that teachers and professors think they have “a great wealth of knowledge they need to bestow upon the benighted public and therefore reform the world.”

“I don’t think that is going to happen because it hasn’t happened in over a century of effort.”

Prof. Dunn: “One thing… get rid of social media. That might be a good start. If we could go back in time and change the McGovern Frazier Commission with changed the method in which we nominate candidates… that had a extraordinary impact on the way our parties’ candidates get sorted and nominated… rewards certain kinds of behavior and certain kinds of individuals and punishes others…”

“Certainly social media is a part of the problem, and cable news as well. Individuals are having trouble navigating what they are seeing on social media and cable news is driven in part by their inability to process it effectively because of their civic knowledge.”

The remainder were questions from the audience.

You can watch the entire debate here: