By Randy Hitz

While recent public debate has focused on the nature of schooling, the conversations have too often neglected or taken for granted the purposes of education.

Meanwhile, too little credit has been given to the attention our Legislature gave to this issue in the Reinventing Education Act of 2004, wherein lawmakers codified three primary goals for the public school system: academic achievement, safety and well-being, and civic responsibility.

They even went so far as to define "civic responsibility" as a component of education. It is defined as knowledge of the fundamental processes of American democracy, skills necessary to actively engage in a democratic society, understanding and awareness of community and global issues, respect for self and others, ability to work together as part of a team, and participation in school and community organizations.

We believe that agreement about the unique role of (pre-school-grade 12) schools in a democratic society will lead to greater understanding about the purposes and nature of schooling. That, in turn, we hope will result in a renewed commitment to quality for all people.

In 1776, when our founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence, they began a grand social experiment in democracy. Never before had such a large and diverse group attempted to govern itself through democratic means.

Within a few short years, they had gained independence from the British crown and written our remarkable Constitution. Though we have the longest living constitution and democracy in the world, the original experiment is far from complete.

In 1992, William Greider, a journalist and author, wrote:

"American democracy is in much deeper trouble than most people wish to acknowledge. ... The substantive meaning of self-government has been hollowed out. What exists behind the formal shell is a systemic breakdown of the shared civic values we call democracy."

Too few people are taking responsibility for active participation as citizens.

The world is far more complex today than it was in 1776. Greater diversity, information overload, and a new kind of economy combine to create new challenges (and opportunities) for democracy. We must be able and willing to make the necessary adjustments if democracy is to survive.

We must continue the struggle to identify and attend to the "shared civic values" to which Greider refers: values such as optimism, free speech and the other individual freedoms protected by the Bill of Rights, shared beliefs such as giving people a second chance, social mobility through education and individual duty to one's community.

Our experiment in democracy includes an experiment in education. Early leaders such as John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were convinced that education for all citizens was essential if they were to have the capacity to govern themselves.

Public education exists in part to provide equity of opportunity in our society. Sheldon Hackney, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, writes that equity of opportunity "justifies" economic inequality, but economic inequality erodes democracy by not providing equal access to the political system.

Because democracy is the core value of our society, the political inequality produced by the unequal distribution of wealth is a serious and continuing tension in our system.

Hackney goes on to say that the tension between liberty and equality cannot be resolved. However, "by linking the two ideals, and allowing them to limit or attenuate each other, we have a civic ideal toward which we can constantly strive, producing eventually perhaps an optimum blend of mutual responsibility and individual responsibility that a wholesome community requires."

Democracies are ambitious, complex and fragile works in progress, and schools are the agencies best equipped to grow and nurture citizens for democracy.

Democracies can survive or thrive only if citizens are equipped with the knowledge, skills and dispositions necessary to sustain them. Moreover, if all citizens are to realize the American dream of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, we must prepare them for democratic citizenship.