With the backing of a legislature his party dominated, Republican governor Doug Ducey created Arizona State University's School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership in 2016. Both SCETL and its founding director, Paul Carrese, are now understood as key leaders in a movement for civic schools and centers.
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor raised the concern over whether Americans understand the difference between a king and a president at a New York Law School event Tuesday. At a Constitution and Citizenship Day Summit panel discussion aimed at fostering conversation about how to improve civic participation with the law school's dean and several other state and federal judges, Sotomayor asked the question without referencing either political party or President Donald Trump.
Earlier this week, I expressed exasperation at the seeming irrelevance of what I used to teach in American government classes in the context of what's going on now. Old standbys like "checks and balances," "equal protection of the law" and "judicial review" seem to have been discarded in favor of what Lionel Trilling called "a series of irritable mental gestures." I couldn't imagine how I would teach the class now.
But so many of the basic tenets we used to take as settled just aren't anymore. Remember checks and balances? There was a time when we assumed that no one branch of the federal government could dominate the other two to such an extent as to render precedent irrelevant. Yet, here we are. I'd have a hard time teaching checks and balances with a straight face now.
Children will need to be given democracy lessons in schools from the age of 11 to help prepare them to vote at age 16, the head of the UK elections watchdog has said. Democratic education will be rolled out to those aged 14 and over first, said Vijay Rangarajan, the chief executive of the Electoral Commission but added that this will need to be expanded to make sure young people are ready to cast their vote.