WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - America’s Democracy Is Faltering Without Civic Education Reform

Episode Date: April 30, 2025

Civic detachment is weakening democracy — and without urgent reform in education, Gen Z may remain the most politically vocal but civically disengaged generation in American history. Alejandro Ramos, Executive Director of the Ramos Research Institute, a Master of Public Administration candidate at Cornell University, and a Young Voices Contributor, argues that the U.S. must prioritize civic education to restore informed democratic participation.He joins Malia Thibado on WRFH to discuss. From 04/30/25.

Hello and welcome. You're listening to WRFH Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm your host, Malia Tibido, with Alejandro Ramos, founder and executive director at the Ramos Research Institute at Cornell University and a young voices contributor who recently wrote, why civic education must be at the forefront of reform for the DC Journal. Hi, Alejandro. Thanks for being here. Hello, thank you for having me, Malia. Yeah. What would you say is the definition of civic education and why is it important? So for me, I define civics more holistically than other people might. I think that it's the ability for people to know the foundational knowledge of the country, but then to also be able to have communication and connection with others and not just being able to say, I know the foundations and I've made a political opinion, but to then be able to take it the next step and say, I have my political opinion and my political ideas and I'm able to have conversation with you in a respectful and civil manner. Right. So from my understanding, your definition is inherently political. So when you say

that there's a need for increased civic education in the country, how do you believe that we can ensure that this program is not skewed one direction or the other? Sure. So I think that at the basis, there are facts which are undeniable. You know, the left can't argue them, the right can't argue them, right? The foundings of our country are civics. I think that civics has turned into, unfortunately, it's become something political. I don't believe that it is political. I think that if you're learning sort of these foundational documents, learning about the Constitution, learning about the Bill of Rights, there's very little, you know, wiggle room for, you know, being able to take things in a completely different direction. Of course, there's different interpretations. And we see that

with the way that judges interpret the Constitution at all levels, but at the most basic level and how it should be taught to students. I think it's become a hyper-partisan issue and it's become entirely politicized when in reality it shouldn't be because we're just doing, you know, the country of service and students a service by teaching them civics and the foundations of our country. So could you give an example of something foundational in civics that you believe is not being taught? Well, I think that, and I'll tell you a quick story. because this is sort of why I've started and civics has become my passion. I'm here based out of Cornell University, and there's someone that I met last year,

and this individual went to one of the top-rated political science programs in the country for undergrad. They were then here at Cornell pursuing a master's of public administration, and this individual had no idea what the three branches of government were, which to me, I looked, And I was like, this has to be a joke. There has to be cameras. This is a TV show that they're filming. And I'm the one being pranked. So I think that at the most basic level, you have people that are like that, right,

that don't know the most basic things. And I called up my father. Both of my parents are immigrants. My father doesn't speak English all that well. And I asked him and I said, Dad, what are the three branches of government? And he goes, well, obviously it's, you know, the executive, the judicial, and the legislative. And I was like, okay, I just wanted to double check

to make sure that that was basics. And he goes, yeah, that's something when I took my citizenship test years and years and years ago that was on there. So, you know, I think that at the most basic level, we're missing these key components to be able to understand how government works and how it functions. And then we have students, you know, specifically at the college level that are forming, you know, these, in my opinion,

and maybe radical thoughts and radical ideas that then are counterintuitive to the cohesion of our country and to being able to have this conversation. But not only do they have these ideas, but then they're not able to communicate them effectively. And then right away, you have a conversation and you get to that point where we've gotten here and we can't go forward and we can't go backwards. So very basically, that's a simple example that I have for you, which I've witnessed. that to me is very sad. Where do you think these trends come from?

Well, I think that I'm an old soul trapped in a young body. I do think that part of the issue is all the technology that we have. I think the phones and the chronic epidemic of people being chronically on their devices, I think is not only posing an issue for civics, but in many other areas developmentally for a lot of these individuals that they no longer have the social skills. They no longer have the civic skills. You know, people prefer to spend an hour to scrolling on TikTok or Instagram or whatever other platform they're using, instead of using that time for good to be able to learn and to better themselves, right?

Because I think that we could all agree there's things that are happening in the U.S., whether it's currently or, you know, for the past few years that we may agree or disagree with. And there's something that we could all do about it. But when we're sucked into these devices, you know, we sort of are in a trance that this is all that exists is these things. And there's nothing that we could do to, you know, improve society and improve our own lives. So I do believe that the devices are a big issue. And I think that the polarization that's happening in the country is the second issue. When you get to this point in why this is why my civics definition focuses on the ability to have courageous dialogue,

I think that when we get to the point where we're so polarized, that courageous dialogue no longer exists, you have two things happening. You have the most extremes, you know, on the left and the right, not being able to have conversations with each other. But then the entire middle, right, the moderates or people that have no idea what they actually believe, you make them feel isolated because they fear jumping into these political conversations for the feel of retribution or cancel culture.

or whatever it may be, even if they're just asking a simple question because they want to have more clarity on something. Right. So you mentioned the influence that electronics has on this generation and their knowledge of civics. I believe you also talk in your article about how electronics and social media lowers the barriers so that Gen Z in particular finds political talk quite accessible. but it's also a medium for misinformation. How do you believe that you can, I guess, leverage the accessibility but also negate the misinformation? Sure. So I think that there's two things, two statistics that I think are important. In 2022, the civic literacy of eighth graders in this country was at 22%.

That was down 2% from 2018. and then in the 2024 election, turnout was 42% within youth, and that was down from 50% in 2020. So I think that fundamentally there's an issue here. We have, as you mentioned in my article, students and the youth have so much more access to information and to connectivity than let's say maybe our parents did. But with that comes its own challenges,

Because although it's great that we're able to communicate and we're able to have these things online, you know, we're an echo chamber, so you're only listening from the people that believe the same exact thing as you. And then many times you're consuming mis and disinformation, and people don't know how to sort of differentiate from what is accurate and what's just a pretty graphic that they're seeing and taking that as fact. So I think that's certainly an issue. And I think that what needs to be done, and I mentioned it in my article, one of the things that we're working on at the Ramos Research Institute is the citizenship empowerment framework, which is a framework that we're developing that's hoping to tackle these issues within civics and, you know, with media literacy and misinformation as well. But I think that that's what's at the crux of the issues.

It's like information overload. We have a 24-7 news cycle now, but that doesn't mean that the information is actually being consumed or looked at from a critical lens. Do you think that the civics illiteracy, political illiteracy, news illiteracy, do you think that can be ascribed to electronics or do you think it can also be ascribed to the education system and the incentives for learning these things? how do you think that we can make young people motivated to learn these things? Yeah. So I think, and I could join you on a whole other podcast for this, I think that, you know, the education system of our country is in, you know, a state of disrepair. We need to do so much to fix. I think that, you know, we sort of have to start from the bottom up because the system is not serving students anymore. You know, it's serving others. We're building.

we're building, we're currently building robots that got into the world and then are unable to function in real life setting. So, but I think wholly, I think that this is, there's a responsibility on everyone to bear on this, right? Adult should want us to be media literate, you know, and civic literate. They should want us to be able to consume information, think critically about it, and then go out into the world and, you know, be active members of society, right? You need an engaged citizenry. You need an informed citizenry to be able to, you know, help out the community, you know, through any type of engagement, whether it's through the church, whether it's through local civic societies, whether it's that

that's through institutions of higher education. And, you know, from here, there's a ripple effect. You would think, and there's some studies that show that by being able to do these things, have people that are more willing to have, again, and I keep going back to courageous style, I like this to me, it's incredibly important. But that's something that we see. In terms of motivating students, that's something that the CEF project, the framework, is looking at now as we've developed four pillars, we're trying to understand now how to

take it to the next level and sort of see, how are we motivating these students, right? what entices them to come into the mix and have these conversations, since so many of them feel isolated? Yeah. This is WRFH Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm Malia Tibido with guest Alejandro Ramos, founder of the Ramos Research Institute and a Young Voices contributor who recently wrote an article on why educational reform must involve a focus on civics. So one thing that you wrote in your article was about how because of the media and civics literacy, a lot of activism performed by the youth has become more performative rather than actionable. Can you talk more about that?

Sure. So I think this is something that we see, you know, constantly online, that everyone's very quick to, you know, make a comment on a post. Everyone is very quick to share something on a story or to, share a graphic or things like that. But, you know, we're not diving in deeper into these issues. So people have become, you know, internet activists where they are constantly posting, they're constantly commenting, they're having conversations in their echo chambers about these topics that they seem to care about. But when it comes to translating that from the devices and

from social media into the public forum and the town square, as I like to call it, there's sort of something totally being lost there. Students are not engaging in real life, you know, whether that's through conversation or whether that's through action. It is simply through these devices. And I think that, you know, in this past election, everyone thought that the voter turnout for youth is going to be significantly higher than it was in 20. 2020, and we saw an 8% drop.

So I think that that's one of the things that will, you know, political scientists and people that watch polls will continue looking at and trying to understand how do we take what people are doing virtually and sort of translate it to real life. And if we're not able to do that, get a better understanding of who are the people that are actually turning out compared to the other individuals that are just. just chronically online. Do you think because you're advocating for a lot of civics literacy, do you think that there should be checks on who should be able to vote based on their

ability to understand America's founding and America's government? Well, I think that would be very difficult to implement here in the United States. But, you know, you see some sort of other requirements in other countries. But I think, you know, to focus on your question, Leah, the, I think in an ideal world, everyone would have knowledge on the country and sort of the system that they're voting for and to have a strong idea of what the issues are in every election and the issues are generally, whether that's domestic poly or international policy. But I think that at the moment that's unlikely because there's so many pieces of this web that are fractured and broken, I think it's very difficult to envision a place that we could get to where everyone is at a much higher civics rate if we don't address all these other issues that we've already discussed today. I've seen a few lawmakers and policy people talking about how they think that American citizens should. be able to pass the citizenship test before being able to vote or they'll impose a lot of different qualifications that they think people should have before they're able to vote. So in terms of

making people more literate in civics, you cited the California state seal of civil engagement as one of the programs or one of the initiatives that has been started in order to try and incentivize students to become more civics literate. Do you think that this is effective? California has seen sort of this being effective. It's a program that's the, it's a state seal of civic engagement. It creates a program for California public school students that really demonstrate an excellence in civics education and participation. And they have an understanding of all this criteria, right? The United States Constitution, the California Constitution, the Democratic system of government, and they take an exam at the end, and they sort of earn the seal,

right, to sort of show for that they have been able to complete this and, you know, that they're, you know, more advanced than maybe their peers are. So I think that California has been successful. There's been a few other states that have adopted this. We haven't, we haven't seen sort of something across the board that works on these issues. But their goal really is to formally recognize and promote student civic engagement, you know, within the students that are graduating from their public schools. A report by the University of California of Riverside says that the California state seal of civil engagement has a focus on hot button issues such as LGBTQ rights, climate change, and book banning. This is considered contentious, I would believe.

Do you think that the focus is more political, more left-leaning, or do you think that this is something that should be discussed? Well, I think that students, to my understanding, students have the ability to select sort of what projects they work on. So if students are choosing to work on these issues, I see no issue with it. I believe wholeheartedly in the First Amendment. I'm a First Amendment absolutist. And the same way where I would not want someone, you know, in a red state to be told, though you can't look at that issue, I think that, you know, in order to preserve the Constitution that I so dearly believe in, we can't tell students, you know, in any state, this is not a project that you could work on, you know, for your community. So I would say, you know,

although maybe I don't agree with all the projects that would come out of sort of implementing a statewide seal across, you know, in different states across the country, I do believe that students have the First Amendment right and the ability to pursue those projects and to focus on those areas that they, you know, that are near and dear to their heart. In terms of education, the Trump administration is implementing a lot of things with education. They want to do away with the Department of Education. They want to do a bit of education reform, which puts a lot of power back into the state's parents' hands on how they want

to educate their children. Do you think that this is the right or the wrong way to be going about it in terms of getting a standardized, holistic, or a deep knowledge of civics? Well, I think there's pros and cons, like everything that President Trump is doing, specifically with, you know, education, I think that, you know, I think that there was an uproar right at the beginning. I think that people need to dive a little bit deeper into the issues and really see sort of why and historically where we have been and where we currently are. I do think that for this issue, though, for civics, it does pose an issue because, you know, each state will be sort of left to their own vices to figure out their own system, their own way

of doing it. I also don't believe, you know, on the same coin, if we flip it, that there should be a mandated national civics education program because, you know, you have the states being so different. I think that the federal government or the Department of Education could give a framework and could give some sort of conceptualization of, okay, this is what, you know, we believe something should look like, but it shouldn't be a mandate because I don't think that the government should really be mandating these big heavy lift projects since I believe in a smaller government. But, you know, I do think that it's important now that it's been really left up to the states for states to take this on for local boards of education to take this on and to really

start thinking about what the next steps are for our country that we've. live in such divided times and what could all of our local communities be doing to better support, you know, the America that once was, that although there's always been division for us to be able to get back to a place where we could have conversations with each other. All right. Thank you very much, Alejandro. Where can people find your work? Sure. People could find my work at Ramos Research Institute. all the my op-eds are up there and so is the research that I work on. All right. This has been WRFH, Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm Malia Tibido and thank you for listening.