Eideard

Retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court after 191 years, is crusading to reverse what she says is an alarming decline in America’s knowledge of democracy and announced an initiative Wednesday to educate children across the country.

Asserting that democracy is not inherited at birth but rather learned in school, O’Connor founded the educational nonprofit group iCivics in 2009 to secure America’s governance and prepare the next generation of citizens and leaders.

On Wednesday, O’Connor announced an expansion of that program to include the Boys & Girls Club of America, which has almost 4,000 clubs serving 4.1 million youngsters.

“Many states around the country are no longer teaching or requiring civics education for young people,” said O’Connor, 82. “When I went to school — and that was a long time ago, and I went to school in El Paso, Texas — we had civics almost every year, and in fact, I almost got tired of it.

“But the fact of the matter is that every young person needs to learn how our government works at the national level, at the state level, at the local level and how they can be part of it,” O’Connor said…

O’Connor cited an Annenberg Public Policy Center national survey showing that only one-third of Americans could name all three branches of the U.S. government…

Then she added: “Two-thirds of Americans can name a judge on ‘American Idol,’ and only 15% can name the chief justice of the United States,” who is John Roberts…

As I said the last time I addressed this question: “Justice O’Connor assumes that our political parties actually would welcome an informed citizenship. I can’t imagine why”. We have the added corruption, this year, of Republican and Blue Dog Democrat governors trying to keep citizens from voting.