There was much hand-wringing the other day when the Committee
for the Study of the American Electorate reported that voter
turnout continued its long, steady decline in this spring’s
primaries. This time only 16 percent of eligible voters went to the
polls, compared to 18 percent in 1998 and 51 percent back in
1966.
For years a number of people (most of them Democrats) complained
that it was the difficulty of registering to vote which was
depressing participation. As a result, county clerks across the
land were forced to forego purging names of registered voters who
failed to vote or had moved. Next came “motor voter” laws,
requiring that state driver’s license bureaus simultaneously
register new licensees to vote.
All this had no effect on voter turnout. That would have come as
no surprise to Miss Anna Lee Guest, my high school Civics teacher.
Were she with us today (unlikely, as she would be about 105) and
were she asked to explain why voter turnout keeps dropping, her
answer would be something like this:
“It’s obvious, dear boy. So few young people are taught Civics
these days it’s a wonder any of them know enough about the workings
of our government and their own rights and responsibilities as
citizens to have anything to do with elections.”
Civics — the teaching of how our system of government works and
the citizen’s rights and responsibilities — was a course staple in
most public school systems from the late 19th Century until the
1970s. Following disillusionment connected with Watergate and
Vietnam, Civics was dropped in many districts or made a subsection
of American History courses. The result: we have a couple of
generations of young Americans who are “civic illiterates,”
according to the National Alliance for Civic Education.
As evidence, it cites the 1998 National Assessment of
Educational Progress, a federal exam. Barely a quarter of
eighth-graders identified the State Department as being responsible
for carrying out U.S. foreign policy. Among seniors, only 57
percent had even a vague idea of how state government fits into our
overall system and how citizens can affect its policies.
That’s a far cry from the results Miss Guest and her
contemporary Civics teachers got from their charges. As many
decades ago as you can count on a hand, Miss Guest was turning High
Seniors at Piedmont, California, High School into would-be voters
(the eligible age was 21 at the time), and ardent arguers of
interpretation of the Declaration of Independence, the U.S.
Constitution and the workings of Congress and the state
legislature.
One faced the senior year with ambivalence: joy at the thought
of finishing high school; trepidation at facing Miss Guest’s strong
voice and demanding standards. There was a great deal of student
participation and much role-playing. She saved the best roles for
herself, such as George III’s mother when he confronted the
rebellious American colonists (“George, be a king!”).
She was no-nonsense (cut-ups were quickly dispatched to the
Dean’s Office), but so passionate about the institutions of
American representative democracy, that her passion worked its way,
osmosis-like, into us. Three-and-a-half years later, when I turned
21, the high point of my birthday was to go downtown to the county
court house to register to vote.
In the wake of the September 11 attacks, all of us had reason to
count our collective blessings, most importantly, our impulse to
immediately pull together as one to confront a great challenge. One
echo of that phenomenon is a renewed interest in schools in
teaching Civics as a course. A Washington Post
story last week reported the case of Allentown, Pennsylvania,
where, as an example, fifth-grade students were recently observed
in a Civics session debating park clean-up, anti-litter laws, the
school dress code and cafeteria seatings. These are the kids who
may soon be involved in high school and college student government,
then — who knows — the state legislature, Congress, even the
White House.
Myron E. Yoder, Allentown’s social studies chief, said: “If you
can show kids they have power to solve a problem, it means they
will be more likely to participate in civic affairs as an adult.”
And that is the whole point, Miss Guest would no doubt agree,
pointing a figure right at you and smiling that you-know-I’m-right
smile.
