Happy Constitution Day! If you somehow forgot to mark your calendar, you’re probably not alone.
The federal observance was established by law in 2004, to commemorate the signing of the Constitution in 1787. Once it was called Citizenship Day.
The act establishing Constitution Day requires federally funded educational institutions to provide instruction on the Constitution, in conjunction with the observance. For a lot of students, it may provide their only glimpse into the way American democracy is supposed to work. That’s bound to have consequences for the future of our country.
We are seeing the effects: In data released by the Department of Education earlier this year, eighth-graders scored worse on the history section of the National Assessment of Educational Progress than in any year since testing began in 1994. Fewer than 1 in 4 students achieved proficiency in civics. In their recent New York Times essay, Satz and Edelstein blamed the decline in civic education, in part, on “vocationalism”: students deserting humanities classes in favor of preprofessional tracks, as they pursue lucrative careers. They wrote, “When universities do not signal the intrinsic value of certain topics or texts by requiring them, many students simply follow market cues.” Civic education, by contrast, is a public good.
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