11/11/2024

Last week’s curation at RealClear’s American Civics portal starts off with a piece at RealClearEducation by Michael Poliakoff and Jack Miller that shines a light on the growth of civic institutions across the United States. Surveys from the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, where Poliakoff serves as president, keep finding a dearth of knowledge about the American founding among both students and teachers. Fortunately, newly established civic institutions are looking to right America’s civic woes. In 2016, the Arizona legislature created the School for Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership at Arizona State University, a model that has “since been replicated at 13 universities in several other states,” write Poliakoff and Miller. They say that similar institutions “devoted to teaching the whole story of America” are being founded or have already opened on campuses like the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and The Ohio State University. In closing, Poliakoff and Miller write, “We have an opportunity with new generations of students to create informed patriots and renew their search for the promise of achieving the American dream.”

Of course, the 2024 election was also a major focus of our coverage last week. A piece by RealClearPolitics White House correspondent Philip Wegmann looks at the aftermath of one of the most hotly contested elections in American history. He points out that “Americans who hope the hyper-partisan fever has broken have a right to be optimistic. They should also remember that these episodes of good feelings can prove fleeting.” At City Journal, Fred Bauer observes another important lesson of the 2024 election: proof that a “politics that consists only of the friend/enemy distinction seems more a species of legalism than politics rightly understood, which demands care for the common good.”