Reteaching democracy: U.S. citizenship test would help all Americans, new book says

Reemphasizing the basics of American citizenship might help solve some of the big problems the country faces, according to a new book on education.

Chris Sinacola and Jamie Gass, the editors behind “Restoring the City on a Hill: U.S. History and Civics in America’s Schools,” say that requiring American students from kindergarten through 12th grade to study and pass the same citizenship test required of legal immigrants would help a new generation of voters find common ground instead of polarization.

“We ask new Americans to pass that test, and they score very well,” said Mr. Sinacola, a former newspaper reporter and editor. “Sometimes you wonder, how informed are voters? Maybe they’re just pulling a lever because of how their parents voted.”

“If you don’t know outs, strikes and innings in baseball, you’re not going to understand the game. The same is true of the executive, judiciary and legislative branches,” added Mr. Gass, a former Massachusetts state education analyst under two Republican governors. “There should be a basic knowledge that pulls us together.”

The two editors supervised the book for the Pioneer Institute, a Boston think tank that produces education research.

In September, a survey the institute conducted through Emerson College found that just 63% of Massachusetts residents could pass the citizenship exam. For example, 55% did not even know the length — six years — of a U.S. senator’s term.

By comparison, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services figures show at least nine in 10 legal immigrants have routinely passed every iteration of the test since 2008.

In a video interview, Mr. Sinacola and Mr. Gass lamented that California and New York in the 1990s changed their K-12 civics requirements from teaching historical documents such as the Constitution to discussing current events. That led other states to do the same.

Over the past five years, states further revamped their requirements to add a hands-on pedagogy called “action civics.” It requires that students participate in social activism and volunteer as community organizers.

In a 2018 revision along these lines, Massachusetts also included an assignment requiring students to write an essay on scrapping the Electoral College — a favorite topic among those on the left who argue the Electoral College, designed to balance the regional interests of voters, is archaic.

“The Electoral College is a great example of how the founders set up a balance in federalism,” Mr. Sinacola said. “Teachers need to tell students, first of all, that there’s no such thing as ‘winning the popular vote,’ because we don’t elect presidents in that way.”

Chapter four of the new book argues for a more open-ended, inclusive and nonpartisan process of drafting American history and civics standards to be as neutral as possible.

“What we actually need is something in the middle, where kids walk away with an understanding of the value of the institutions,” Mr. Gass said.

According to the editors, encouraging K-12 students to protest U.S. institutions without a basic knowledge of them sows chaos in the political process. They point to the growing number of pandemic-era student walkouts protesting race, gender and environmental policies as an example.

“Rather than teaching kids about the fundamentals, the civil rights movement and key players, they educate kids to be politically active protesters,” Mr. Gass said. 

“When students are young, they need to know things before telling you what they think about them,” Mr. Sinacola added. “If they don’t have that basic grounding, they feel a sense of loss, alienation and drift.”

Their book includes letter grades for popular American history and civics programs.

For example, the editors give the 1776 Curriculum from Hillsdale College, a conservative Christian school in Michigan, an “A-“ grade for focusing on primary sources.

They give Generation Citizen — an action civics curriculum that describes its goal as mobilizing students to “transform our democracy” — an “F” for uncritically endorsing school walkouts to protest gun violence, rebranding the Founding Fathers as White slave owners, and saying the American Revolution aimed to preserve legalized slavery.

“We’d rather teach the truth that capitalism is the best way to generate wealth for a lot of people,” Mr. Sinacola said. “We are unapologetically pro-American.”

“While the founders were imperfect, to write that ‘all men are created equal’ was a radical act,” Mr. Gass added. “There’s a ’blame America first’ attitude in a lot of school districts across this country.”

Ultimately, the two men believe the citizenship test best helps young people grasp the reasoning behind U.S. political institutions. And they say that’s healthier for democracy than telling students what to think heading into the turbulent 2024 presidential election.

“We draw upon the wisdom of the founders because their wisdom endures,” Mr. Sinacola said. “It has weathered many storms, and there’s great value in that.”