I want to confess to you that I am here as a matter of faith. Civic faith.

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1 Keynote Address Fourth Education Leadership Colloquium on the Civic Mission of American Education Peabody Hotel, Orlando, Florida, July 12, 2004 by David E. Skaggs Why are we here? What is our mission? Why does it matter? Existential questions are often troubling and usually healthy. We hold these Truths to be self-evident... I want to confess to you that I am here as a matter of faith. Civic faith. Self-evident truths are things you do not attempt to prove. They are not susceptible of proof. They are a matter of faith. That all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights... I profess to a belief that the work of preserving and nurturing American democracy and representative government is a calling. It is a vocation drawn from and one that draws on our deepest moral convictions. Created equal. Each of us is born with human dignity and inherent worth. Another self-evident truth flows from that individual equality and dignity. Each of us deserves and is entitled to respect. That mutual respect is at the core of democracy. It is the way we apply the truth of individual dignity and worth to the ordering of our civil life together. It is sacred. The founders knew that pure democracy was not suited to a country as large even as those first 13 states were. Representative democracy a republic was the way to make the ideal of democracy workable for a nation that took in an expanse of land and a large number and a diversity of people. As Madison argued in Federalist 10: A republic... a government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect, and promises the cure.... the delegation of the government... to a small number of citizens elected by the rest;... The effect... Executive Director, Center for Democracy & Citizenship at the Council for Excellence in Government, Washington DC; Director, Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools; Congressman from Colorado (D),

2 Page 2 is, on the one hand, to refine and enlarge the public views, by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations. Those words are enough to make any representative stand tall. And in their nice 18 th Century way, they suggest the magic that should take place in a representative body. Intermediation is the fancy term for the way representatives try to work things out in seeking the common good a common wealth. Plainly put, if I want to get anything done for my constituents, I better pay attention to what you want to get done for yours. As long as that doesn t violate anybody s fundamental principles, and as long as we have the resources to distribute fairly among us, we should come to a place of compromise where most people will be better off than they were before. Call it give-and-take, or log-rolling, or deal-making, it s the basic work of representatives and legislatures. It is the living out of the axiom that we are all in this together. It is also the way the system gives some concrete expression and accountability to the principle of mutual respect our stake in each other. Public, recorded votes on amendments and passage of laws permits accountability for the deals and sanction for failure to live up to the obligations legislators make to each other in behalf of those they represent. Did I honor my commitment to you and your people? So, in this often awkward and cumbersome process, the conduct of our representatives ought to reflect our starting principles of individual dignity and worth and mutual respect. Federalist 10 and the rest of the Federalist Papers comprised both a stirring homily and a practical justification for the new Republic. We the People... in Order to... establish Justice... promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution.... Again, notice the language of civic religion in Blessings of Liberty. We did not merely establish a Constitution, we ordained it. With its foundation in civic faith, how faithful is America to its foundations? No one quarrels with the importance of knowledge and skills in math, reading and science for any student to succeed in life. But let s not leave behind the foundation mission of public education, its civic mission: To prepare America s young people to be citizens competent participants in a representative democracy.

3 Page 3 While that civic mission was at the heart of the free public education movement in its early days, these days many ask if that mission is still relevant and useful. One loud answer to that question can be found in the opinions of the American people. A national survey just released by the Educational Testing Service shows that when asked the fundamental purpose of the public schools they give top rank to producing literate, educated citizens who participate in our democracy. And, if that s not enough, young people themselves share a sense that they need preparation for citizenship. In a national poll of year olds, two-thirds favored requiring classes on civics and government in middle and high school. That hunger for better preparation is also heard in focus groups with young adults, where they ll tell you how ill-prepared they feel for something as important as voting. Unfortunately, just a little more than half of them think voting actually is important. Why the seeming disconnect? Let me put the question differently, with an odd, but hopefully instructive, comparison: What s the difference between voting and recycling? Why, over the generation since the 26 th Amendment lowered the voting age to 18, have the individual acts of voting among those 18 to 24 declined, while their individual acts to conserve resources increased? Both kinds of behavior viewed rationally at the individual level are unlikely to matter much. But both kinds of behavior when considered for their cumulative impact have force: lots of votes, lots of aluminum cans. With voting, the consequences of extrapolating one individual act to the acts of many does not seem to grab young people; with recycling, it does. Why? The answer has many parts. We ve made recycling more convenient, while voting remains less accessible most places. Recycling behavior is subsidized in many places; voting, not. There are legal prerequisites to voting; anybody can recycle. And so on. I believe, however, that the answer has more to do with beliefs and values the beliefs and values we as a society instill and inculcate in students and young people. The conservation and environmental movement has been powerfully effective in establishing its beliefs and values among young people over the last thirty years. The civic engagement and democracy movement has been much less driven and effective. It probably would not occur to the typical teenager to question the efficacy of recycling. Sadly, that s among the first questions you d get about voting: What difference does it make? That has to change. How do we do it?

4 Page 4 Let s take a page from our environmental friends. They have succeeded by dint of hard and persistent effort in having their message about taking care of the planet penetrate the news, the media, the schools, and community organizations. It s a message grounded in hard analysis, one that appeals fundamentally to a moral sense, and one that entails serious consequences. And teachers in schools have played a key part in delivering the message. Democratic renewal can and should push the same buttons. That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed. Jefferson invoked the positive connection between just power and the consent of the governed in the Declaration of Independence for good reason. Looked at the other way around, ever-lower voter turnout has profound implications for the legitimacy of government authority. The irony of the erosion of democratic participation in our country was brought home to me powerfully one day 14 years ago. The Berlin wall had come down the previous November. It was Sunday, March 18, 1990, and I was one of a group of a dozen U S Representatives and Senators serving as one of the international teams monitoring the East German elections. It was late in the morning, and our bus had arrived at a village southeast of Berlin. We went inside the polling place in a small community building. After thirty minutes or so with not much happening, we decided to move on to the next site and went out to get on the bus. Just then an elderly couple at least in their late 70s were riding up on their bicycles. One of the local officials ran over to ask us to come back the couple wanted to meet the American congressmen. Through an interpreter, the old woman explained that this was their first real election since Hitler came to power nearly sixty years before. With tears in their eyes, they wanted us to know how, through all those years, America had been the beacon for democracy and freedom that had kept their hope for this day alive. They wanted to thank us for that. They asked us to thank the American people for them. And how did the power of our ideas and ideals fare at home that year? In the 1990 elections in the United States, less than half of the citizens over 18 voted. And you know what s happened since. Let me try another off-the-wall rhetorical question. What is the difference between your relationship with the government and with Wal*Mart?

5 Page 5 For too many of us these days, I fear the answer is not much, although I suspect they like Wal*Mart more. People tend to see both relationships as simply arms-length transactions: taxes paid for public services; money spent for products. After a generation of belittlement and derision, government has a bad image. We don t appreciate or understand that things like due process and equal protection occasion necessary inefficiencies. Politics the messy process of electing representatives and then of having them engage in all that horse-trading is not well-regarded. We do not feel we have any more of a stake in the government than we do in the store. The idea that we are the government is a foreign concept to many. It is all them, and no us. All wealth, no common wealth? Well, not quite. As the ETS poll shows, the American people do know better they want their children to be nurtured and experienced in the historic principles and values of the nation. As with my German election experience, it s always instructive when a foreigner understands us better than we do ourselves. In February 1977 I had just finished a stint as AA and Campaign Manager for then Congressman Tim Wirth the man I would eventually succeed in the House. My reward was my first real vacation in 2-1/2 years and my first trip to Europe. Jimmy Carter was our new President, and he was crafting a foreign policy with respect for human rights as a central tenet. My journey took me to Prague, where that policy had quickly been invoked in the wake of another crack-down on dissent by the Czech Communist government. As I was wandering around the vast courtyard of Prague Castle, a graying man in his fifties came up to me and asked in excellent English if I wanted to change money and get a better deal than the lousy official exchange rate. I knew it might be a set-up, and quickly declined. But I noticed something about this man a worn tweed jacket and frayed shirt collar could not hide a certain distinguished dignity. Why not try to talk to him? So, after some pleasantries about the beauty of Prague, I asked him what he thought of my new President. Was he aware of his human rights policy? What might that policy mean for him? Did he want the US to make things harder on his country and on him in the cause of eventually improving his human rights? He paused and thought for a moment. Then he said: You should remember what your Presidents Washington and Jefferson said when your country began. And you should especially remember what your President Lincoln said after that battle during your Civil War. I was stunned and moved. Here, in the this ancient city in the middle of Communist Eastern Europe, this stranger was giving me a lesson in American history and values. He saw the tears in my eyes, and turned away into the crowd not wanting to embarrass me.

6 Page 6 I recovered, realized what a wonderful thing had happened, and searched to find him. I wanted more. But he had simply vanished. Remember, he said, what your President Lincoln said after that battle during your Civil War: that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth. We are learning again these days that the greatest call on the legitimacy of government power comes with war, when government can force us to die for our country. Yet, we know in our bones that these honored dead shall not have died in vain as long as the deaths do really help to preserve government of the people, by the people, for the people. So, how well have our representative institutions worked this time? Have they exercised just power derived properly from the consent of the governed? Are we even supposed to be asking these questions?.... * * * * Where do we learn about this stuff? At home and in school. Both these core institutions of society have been stretched by competing demands on time and resources. I won t attempt to make the case here about the role of parents in civic instruction. But let s consider the schools. Back to that ETS poll. People want the schools to prepare our young people to be good and active citizens. They want that as much as anything they want the schools to do. The challenge now is to restore civic education to its essential and rightful place as a central purpose of public education. We have to recognize its central purpose not just rhetorically, but in practice with classroom time and resources, with facts and meaningful experiences, with teacher preparation and accountability. Just imagine. Imagine a generation imbued from kindergarten through high school with an understanding of the virtues and responsibilities of America s representative democracy our collective expression of individual dignity and mutual respect. Imagine a generation that appreciates that justice ultimately can come only from their active participation, their consent. Imagine a generation that sees the vote as a sacred duty. We can decide to make that happen! So, we have come back to those existential questions about our mission and its significance. There is no more important work to be done than civic education.

7 Page 7 It is how we sustain the civic faith that informs the nation. It is what may enable the nation to keep faith with its original purposes. Only when America honors that faith and those purposes, can our children carry on with justice and mutual respect. Only when it does, can our leadership of the world be true, authentic and effective. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honour.