Substantive Ideas for Creating Better Citizens

Last weekend, our friend Thomas Friedman argued that while things are looking up for China these days, America still holds on to the title of "World's Greatest Dream Machine." Unfortunately, Friedman writes, imagination does not translate into good governance. Friedman argues that the increased fragmentation of American society has rendered it incapable of producing optimal solutions to its problems. Friedman's answer?

The standard answer is that we need better leaders. The real answer is that we need better citizens. We need citizens who will convey to their leaders that they are ready to sacrifice, even pay, yes, higher taxes, and will not punish politicians who ask them to do the hard things. Otherwise, folks, we’re in trouble. A great power that can only produce suboptimal responses to its biggest challenges will, in time, fade from being a great power — no matter how much imagination it generates.

Okay, we can work with that. The generic call for more citizenship is a good step for Friedman. But as Peter Levine notes, Friedman stops at generalities when we need something more.

I agree with [the notion that we need better citizens] and have staked my whole career on this premise. But how do you get 'better citizens'? ... I welcome Friedman's conclusion but wish he would get behind concrete solutions.

Levine asserts that any plan to reform the nation's media to encourage better citizenship skills is ill-fated; the increased fragmentation of interests, opinions, and messages prevents even our most charismatic of messengers (Barack Obama) from clearly communicating to the rest of society. Instead, Levine suggests that the development of better citizens can be found in two strategies.

1. Get them while they're young, receptive, and a captive audience. Build really engaging, unbiased, motivating, and informative civic education into the school curriculum. My blog posts categorized as advocating civic education and a high school civic curriculum are about that.

2. Reform institutions so that hands-on participation by ordinary adults is welcomed and rewarding. The theory is that people who see tangible impact from their own civic engagement (mainly at the local level) will want to be informed and to exchange ideas and perspectives with people different from themselves. My blog posts about deliberation and civic reform are about that.

I wholeheartedly agree with Levine's approach and felt it was important to echo this here. We should be doing everything possible, working with organizations like the National Center for Learning and Citizenship (NCLC), to infuse civics education into K-12 education as much as possible. Levine's second strategy is particularly apt in discussions regarding youth involvement in political parties. In 2008, for example, youth were still struggling for representation near the top of the Democratic Party. To create better citizens, targeting education to the young and increasing access to opportunities are far and away better solutions than simply restating the problem.