During the shutdown, Trey Grayson (former Secretary of State, R-Kentucky and current director of Harvard’s Institute of Politics) and I published a piece on civic education in The Hill, the newspaper for Congress and people who work around it. We tried to draw policymakers’ attention to civic education during the political crisis:

How should we teach civics when Congress doesn’t seem capable of following the principles in an eighth-grade civics textbook? The budget impasse is just the latest example of the bitter partisan struggle that our children observe as they form their impressions of politics and public life. …

As the political system evolves into something remote from the traditional civics textbook, educators, parents, and policymakers must take a new look at how we teach the subject. Preparing the next generation to work together to address serious national problems remains the core goal. It is even more important—but also especially difficult—in a time of rapid change and frequent crisis. …