Why They Should Teach Civics In School Again, Part II

Yes, this is old news already, but when the President of the United States is completely oblivious to the existence of one of the most important pieces of civil rights legislation in the last 50 years, it doesn't exactly set a shining example for these guys:

One in three U.S. high school students say the press ought to be more restricted, and even more say the government should approve newspaper stories before readers see them, according to a survey being released today.

The survey of 112,003 students finds that 36% believe newspapers should get "government approval" of stories before publishing; 51% say they should be able to publish freely; 13% have no opinion.



Asked whether the press enjoys "too much freedom," not enough or about the right amount, 32% say "too much," and 37% say it has the right amount. Ten percent say it has too little.



The survey of First Amendment rights was commissioned by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and conducted last spring by the University of Connecticut. It also questioned 327 principals and 7,889 teachers.



The findings aren't surprising to Jack Dvorak, director of the High School Journalism Institute at Indiana University in Bloomington. "Even professional journalists are often unaware of a lot of the freedoms that might be associated with the First Amendment," he says.



The survey "confirms what a lot of people who are interested in this area have known for a long time," he says: Kids aren't learning enough about the First Amendment in history, civics or English classes. It also tracks closely with recent findings of adults' attitudes.



"It's part of our Constitution, so this should be part of a formal education," says Dvorak, who has worked with student journalists since 1968.



Although a large majority of students surveyed say musicians and others should be allowed to express "unpopular opinions," 74% say people shouldn't be able to burn or deface an American flag as a political statement; 75% mistakenly believe it is illegal.

The only remaining question is whether this stuff isn't taught in schools, or whether Americans don't think that the tenets on which this country stands are important. If that's the case, we're hardly in a position to go imposing the system we know nothing about on other countries until we get our own act together.