How we let civic education slide—and why we need a crash course in the Constitution today.

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I’ve got a new year’s resolution and a new slogan for the country.

The resolution may be difficult, but it’s essential. Americans must resolve to be smarter going forward than we have been for the past several years.

For more than 250 years, Americans have shared a vision of a democracy in which all citizens understand, appreciate, and engage actively in civic and political life. In recent decades, however, increasing numbers of Americans have disengaged from civic and political institutions such as voluntary associations, religious congregations, community-based organizations, and political and electoral activities such as voting and being informed about public issues.

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In 1963, Stanley Milgram, an assistant professor of psychology at Yale, published his infamous experiment on obedience to authority. Its conclusion was that most ordinary people were willing to administer what they believed to be painful, even dangerous, electric shocks to innocent people if a man in a white lab coat told them to.

Civic education is essential to preserving constitutional government. This has been recognized since the founding of our nation. Thomas Jefferson tells us, “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” James Madison warns us that, “Popular government without education is the prologue to a farce or a tragedy.” Competent and conscientious citizens who exercise their rights and fulfill their responsibilities are the result of sound programs in education for citizenship. That is why schools not only have a civic mission; it is why their civic mission is their foremost responsibility.

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Barack Obama has assigned a top priority to financial reform when the new Congress assembles today. If history is any guide, legislators can perform a signal service by moving beyond the myriad details of the rescue plans to provide a coherent account of the origins of the current crisis. The moment calls for nothing less than a sweeping inquest into the twin housing and stock market crashes to create both the intellectual context and the political constituency for change.

 "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." -- Thomas Jefferson

Just how stupid are we? Pretty stupid, it would seem, when we come across headlines like this: "Homer Simpson, Yes -- 1st Amendment 'Doh,' Survey Finds" (Associated Press 3/1/06).