“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
How many Americans really know and understand the basic fundamentals of the United States Constitution?
Besides lawyers, judges, and other professionals in the field of law (and of course AP Government students), I’d say not many. I’m not going to lie: I don’t know all of the ins and outs of the Constitution myself, and I’m not going to act like I do.
Most people can probably name the first and second amendments, the right to freedom of speech and right to bear arms, respectively, but do they really know the other 25?
If you don’t understand what the Constitution says, then you don’t understand the full extent of your rights as an American citizen. So what is a simple way to fix this problem? Require public schools across the country to teach high school students courses in Constitutional literacy just as they would a basic core credit such as math, science, history, and English.
In a survey conducted by the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, only 15% of those surveyed knew when the Constitution was written (1787) and only 25% knew how many amendments there are (27).
Required courses in high school such as Financial Fitness, English, and research classes are meant to prepare students for the real world and the challenges they will face post-graduation. Yes, knowing how to form a grammatically correct sentence or balance a checkbook are important skills for everyday life, but it is equally important that every American citizen knows their rights, because, guess what, when they get to the real world, they will have to know those as well.
Providing a firm foundation of basic Constitutional literacy in public schools will make the next generations of American citizens more aware of their rights and liberties bestowed upon them by our founding fathers 235 years ago. Heck, providing this foundation will set Americans up to not only develop a better understanding of Constitutional law, but also help them to analyze and develop their own political opinions with a non-partisan influence. The future of our country would look a whole lot brighter if we could at least double that 25% of Americans who know the correct number of amendments.