Civic Literacy is one of those “do-good” subjects often dismissed by supposedly more hard-nosed or more pragmatic people. This is a mistake. Our political system is functioning less well than it could, less well than Americans say they would like it to, because of a drift away from an understanding of, let alone a commitment to, the democratic principles embodied in the Constitution. Those principles have guided the country for 220 years, the longest run of democracy in human history. But now most high school students can’t even identify the principles or answer questions about the system built on them. Indeed, many Americans of all ages can’t identify them.
The Scary Consequences of Our Mindless Indifference to the History of the Constitution (HNN)
Maybe our best hope lies in all of those immigrants studying for the naturalisation test.