Spotlight: Why Do Kids Need to Study the Constitution?

“I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society, but the people themselves: and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is, not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.”

— Thomas Jefferson

According to Parkinson’s Law, bureaucracies will always continue to grow because “work and personnel expand to consume the available resources.” America’s Founding Fathers, wary of this phenomenon, instilled in the Constitution measures to fight against the rise of an overly powerful central government.

Yet, the news today is full of reports of governmental overreach, including the expansion of administrative courts, which deny people the right to a jury trial; the unwarranted land grab facilitated by the EPA’s Clean Water Rule, which bypasses the rules of eminent domain; and the NSA’s surveillance programs, which invade Americans’ privacy.

However, there are also cases of government “under reach,” in which authorities fail to protect citizens’ rights. An example of this is when colleges allow violent protesters to restrict people’s freedom of speech on campus.

Are We Teaching Our Children What They Need to Know?

How is it that these abuses are happening, given the restrictions against such actions in our founding documents? The answer is ignorance. For many decades now, our elementary and high schools have been putting less emphasis on teaching civics in order to spend more resources on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses. Consequently, America’s children are unaware of the principles of American government and their rights and responsibilities as citizens.

This dearth of civics instruction is not limited to lower education, however. Colleges and universities have also failed to educate the nation’s youth. In fact, 82 percent of institutes of higher learning don’t even require students to take a single class in American government or history. And those that do often enable students to take courses that reflect their interests. Thus, we end up with classes like “The History of Zombie Films.”

Survey Data Show More Must Be Done

Several recent surveys have revealed the depth of young Americans’ ignorance about our founding documents. One of these, a 2015 American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) survey asked multiple-choice civics questions of 383 college graduates. The respondents’ answers were disheartening at best.

The survey results showed that most people didn’t understand the history, structure, or underlying philosophy of the Constitution. For example, one-third of survey takers were unaware that the Bill of Rights is a list of Constitutional amendments. Nearly 60 percent of the respondents identified Thomas Jefferson as the “Father of the Constitution,” a title that properly belongs to James Madison. Further, more than 40 percent of people surveyed incorrectly thought that presidential approval is required to amend the Constitution.

A survey conducted by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) revealed that just 1 in 10 students sufficiently understood the Constitution’s system of checks and balances that constrains the three branches of government. Even more shocking, a Newsweek poll of 1,000 citizens showed that two-thirds couldn’t identify the Constitution as the “supreme law of the land.”

Why Do We Need to Teach Our Children about the Founding Documents?

To protect our rights as citizens, we must understand what the Constitution says, what the founders meant when they wrote it, and even more importantly, why they wrote it. Only by educating ourselves and future generations about our foundational document can we preserve our liberties. If we don’t know what our rights are, how can we recognize when someone abuses them?

Citizens who don’t learn about the separation of powers, for example, won’t protest when one branch of the federal government starts to incorporate the powers rightfully belonging to one or more of the other branches. Similarly, people who don’t understand the concept of federalism (how the states and the federal government share power) won’t sound the alarm when the federal government starts to dictate how states must handle internal matters.

The Good News

There is reason to be hopeful, however. Across the country, many individuals and groups are stepping forward to take responsibility for educating our young people about the Constitution and its importance in all of our lives.

The Donald L. Koch Foundation, for example, sponsors annual lectures on the founding documents at schools. These talks teach students about the history of the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution, bringing to life the personalities involved and making the concepts behind the documents relevant for contemporary students.

In 2016, South Carolina passed a bill that mandated that all public high schools teach students about the Constitution. It also mandated the study of the Federalist Papers and “the structure of the government and the role of separation of powers and the freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.”

The nonprofit iCivics, which former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor founded in 2009, aims to bring civics education back to public schools. Through the games on the group’s website, children can experience first-hand how our government operates. There are also efforts underway to require all high school students to pass the same citizenship test that immigrants take to gain citizenship.