Civic Literacy Quotes

In a democracy, we have always had to worry about the ignorance of the uneducated. Today we have to worry about the ignorance of people with college degrees.

On the diffusion of education among the people rest the preservation and perpetuation of our free institutions.

I don't think that our Founders would believe that America could long prosper if the people were not readers.

I had become increasingly concerned in recent years about the lack of civics education in our nation's schools. In recent years, the schools have stopped teaching it. And it's unfortunate.

Civics is not only how to run the country before it's your turn to run the country; it is, in fact, the study of power, practical political power. And you must start that process at an age level when kids' brains are still open and malleable.

The values and voices of democracy are silent. Either we have lost touch with those values or, no better, believe they need not or cannot be taught.

Essentially, social education is moral education, and moral education is preparation for citizenship... When Jefferson and others advocated public education, it was to prepare for citizenship in a new, constitutional, democratic society.

We have a complex system of government. You have to teach it to every generation.

We are not educated well enough to perform the necessary act of intelligently selecting our leaders.

I don't think I'm equipped enough to be giving anyone a civics lesson or any kind of message.

Cultivating a thoughtful citizenry is a project for educators, parents, and religious and community leaders as much as tech leaders.

When you Google me, you'll find a lot of people don't like Richard Dreyfuss. Because I'm cocky and I present a cocky attitude. But no one has ever disagreed with the notion I represent, that we need more civic education. So far there's 100 percent support for that.

That text is known to them that have the patience to read it, possibly one one-hundredth of one percent of the denizens. They forget it, all save a few Western states. I think somebody in Dakota once read it. The Constitution.

Half the states have stopped making civics and government a requirement for high school. Half.

Only 36 percent of Americans could pass a multiple-choice civics test of the kind that is administered to immigrants seeking to become citizens.

History must share with reading, writing and arithmetic first rank as the most important subjects in the curriculum. Understanding the issues on which citizens of a republic are expected to vote is impossible without an understanding of the past.

I begin to feel like I was in the last generation of Americans who took a civics class.

I believe that when you provide information to people, they become less fearful and they will engage more in their democracy if they are empowered with information.

Democracy is a difficult art of government, demanding of its citizens high ratios of courage and literacy, and at the moment we lack both the necessary habits of mind and a sphere of common reference.

I'm not a politician, I'm not in Congress. You know what I mean? I'm just a black girl that makes YouTube videos and tries to teach dialogue in campuses so they think before stepping into a voting booth.

Civic education and civic responsibility should be taught in elementary school.

Most fourth graders can't say why Abraham Lincoln is an important historical figure? Wow. This is far more distressing than if the news had been that fourth graders were bad at reciting multiplication tables, because you can, in fact, Google that.

Even civics classes have almost disappeared from the schools. So things have not gotten any better.

You live in a country that's marked by celebrity culture, you know, that basically infantilizes people, paralyzes them, eliminates all notions of civic literacy, turns the school into bastions of ignorance. They completely kill the radical imagination in any fundamental way.

We're an ignorant nation right now. We're not really capable, I do not think, the majority of our people, of making the decisions that have to be made at election time and particularly in the selection of their legislatures and their Congress and the presidency, of course. I don't think we're bright enough to do the job that would preserve our democracy, our republic. I think we're in serious danger.