The problem is not what is currently and ambitiously embraced as the primary purpose of public schooling, the concern is what is not embraced. What has recently gone missing, as a fundamental purpose of public education, is to maintain and advance our democratic community. Everything is wrong if we lose sight of the critical equation between public schooling, democracy and the quality of our lives. Essentially, not placing democracy at the center of the equation puts all else at risk. There is only one road to democracy, and education is that road.
Healthy nations have healthy schools.
In a very real sense, the vitality of democracy is measured by the attention that schools pay to civic literacy. Public schools, as instruments of society, must play a central role in helping students understand, examine and act on the very delicate and complex, but very real balance between individual freedom and the common good, and between individuality and civicism. It must also be accepted that the tension between individual freedom and the common good will always exist and should exist. Students today have more access to more information, and thus power, than ever before in history. Consequently, the current spread of civic illiteracy may present a more real threat to democracy, as we know it, and the need for developing civic competence may be more urgent than in previous generations.