Despite these abysmal numbers, the finding that stayed with me was not on the quiz itself. Sixty percent of Gen Zers told the same pollsters that America has strayed from its founding principles. I found that remarkable because I do not understand how we can ask a generation to judge whether the country has departed from its founding principles if so many were never taught what those principles are.

While the Cato numbers are jarring, the findings of continued deep ignorance among younger Americans are not new. This spring, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) asked three thousand undergraduates where “government of the people, by the people, for the people” comes from, and about a quarter placed it in the Gettysburg Address. A little over a third knew that Congress declared war. The last federal civics assessment found 22% of eighth graders at or above proficiency in civics. We have been measuring our civic deficiency for decades, but almost nothing has changed.

I have taught American politics for close to two decades to college and high school students, and I see the same thing from the other side of the classroom. Every year I assign the Declaration of Independence, and every year at least a handful of students are surprised to discover that it is not simply a declaration, it’s a complex and well-reasoned argument. Jefferson does not merely announce independence. He explains, point by point, why separation from Britain had become necessary. I work with so many bright and thoughtful students, but what comes through far too often is that nobody ever really walked them through the document before.

When numbers from Cato and ACTA are released, two explanations usually follow. The first is that schools stopped teaching civics. The second, which I have written about before, is that the congregations, clubs, scout troops, veterans’ organizations, and other civic institutions that once helped form citizens have become weaker or disappeared altogether. 

Both explanations have some truth in them, but neither is sufficient on its own. The fact that educators, leaders, and citizens are habitually overlooking is this: civic knowledge and civic formation have always depended on one another.

The founders understood this well. They did not simply build a constitutional system and assume that people would support it. They defended it publicly. The eighty-five essays that became The Federalist Papers were written because ratification was uncertain and persuasion was necessary. The American republic was created and then sustained from the beginning not simply by institutions, but by arguments made openly to fellow citizens.

That fact remains true today. Every generation inherits our institutions, but no generation automatically inherits the argument that justifies them. Every generation has to hear that argument, wrestle with it, and ultimately decide whether it is persuasive. And that is what a free society requires.

Schools certainly have an important role to play. The eighth-grade NAEP civics numbers make that impossible to deny. Students should spend more time reading the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Federalist Papers, and the speeches that shaped the republic rather than simply discussing civic engagement in the abstract. Colleges, too, should stop treating the American government as an elective that relatively few students ever take.

At the same time, it is unrealistic to expect schools to carry this responsibility alone. A course can introduce information, but it cannot provide repetition that leads to formation. Schools cannot create family traditions, and they are not designed to create the habits that develop when children hear the same stories and ideas over many years from adults they know and trust.

That is why families and civic institutions still matter so much. Civic knowledge is not simply information that is memorized for an exam. It becomes meaningful through exposure and then repetition. Schools can teach a lesson, but families and outside civic institutions teach it again for words and ideas heard often enough become part of the furniture of the mind. That is how a people remembers.

This past Fourth of July, I took my son to Colonial Williamsburg to hear the Declaration read from the balcony. We also visited Philadelphia and stood where the Declaration was debated and signed. Those were enjoyable days together as father and son, but they were also lessons in American history. I doubt he experienced those two things as separate. 

The encouraging part is that improving civic knowledge and strengthening the civic sphere does not depend on Congress, a curriculum committee, or a larger education budget. Families, libraries, museums, congregations, scout troops, historical societies, and veterans’ organizations can begin this work immediately. Read the Declaration aloud. Read the Constitution. Visit the places where our history unfolded. Mark Independence Day and Constitution Day as occasions to teach, not simply to celebrate. Tell the stories that explain why this country exists and how it came to be. None of that requires permission from anyone.

THE CREATION MYTH BEHIND THE CAMPAIGN TO ABOLISH AMERICA

Another survey will arrive next year with slightly different numbers and the same disappointing conclusion. That fact is that we have become very good at measuring our civic decline without doing much to reverse it. 

A free country depends on each generation understanding why it exists and why it is worth preserving. If too many young Americans cannot explain the country’s founding principles, the fault is not theirs alone. We stopped making the case for them.