Can Civics Education Save Democracy? Judges & Educators React

This week on Keepers of Our Republic, host Brooke Bergen speaks with civic educators, legal scholars, and former judges at the University of Washington School of Law. They chat about the growing civics education gap in the United States, and what it means for the future of democracy.

Guests discuss declining public trust in government and the judiciary, why so many Americans misunderstand how courts actually work, and the long-term consequences of civic disengagement. From media literacy and youth apathy to judicial independence and the role of teachers, this episode explores how education can help rebuild trust in democratic institutions.

Featuring conversations with:

Corey Paulson, Head of Civics Education & Development at Teach with TVW
Louise Dubé, CEO of iCivics
Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean, UC Berkeley School of Law
Judge Benes Aldana (Ret.), Former President & CEO, National Judicial College

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Welcome back to Keepers of our Republic, a new weekly podcast from Keep Our Republic that takes listeners inside the institutions at the heart of American democracy. Every week, Keepers of Our Republic features thoughtful conversations with election administrators and retired federal judges. We explore how elections are really run, discuss why an independent judiciary is essential to a strong republic, and separate fact from fiction in a fast-changing world. Learn more about Keep Our Republic, a nonpartisan nonprofit, at our website, https://keepourrepublic.org 

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Welcome back everyone to Keepers of Our Republic. I'm coming to you again from the University of Washington. We're heading soon into Memorial Day weekend, and while school may be out for the summer, civics education is very much on our minds. This week I'm sharing conversations with civic educators, professors, and judges who I spoke with at the University of Washington and Law Symposium about the reality of the civics education gap and how we can harness the power of education to re-engage Americans in supporting a thriving democracy. If you don't already, make sure you follow and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And thanks for joining us.

SPEAKER_02 0:39

Hi, my name is Corey Paulson, and I am the head of civic education at TVW in the education department of Teach with TVW.

SPEAKER_03 0:46

Corey, you've been teaching American government and history for some time. And as an educator, what do you see are the biggest challenges or threats to our third branch, the judicial branch of our government at this moment?

SPEAKER_02 0:59

I think mostly for students, and I like to always frame it in talking about what students would see as the biggest challenge, is lack of knowledge about our third branch of government, especially from teachers, as well as potentially it's not being taught as much in schools, like for teachers coming out of school. Are they really focusing on how our government works together and how the three branches of government are independent from one another? And I think a lot of teachers are kind of unfamiliar with the judicial branch. They focus a lot of time teaching in the classroom on the legislative branch and on the executive branch, and the judicial branch kind of gets not as much focus when we're talking about the rule of law. It's really complicated. And so I think it's um often teachers, I know myself, would teach it, of course, because it's an important thing to teach, but wouldn't want to get anything wrong because it's so complicated. And if you're not involved in the judicial system yourself, so having gone through it, or you know, are a lawyer yourself, it's really challenging to do that. And so students aren't getting as much of that in-depth knowledge. They're definitely studying the landmark cases and you know, looking into Supreme Court cases, but maybe not as much on kind of the day-to-day level. I don't think that students or teachers know what a district court does on a day-to-day level, even though that's the court that if you're gonna go to court, that's gonna be the one, district or municipal, but knowing what the differences between those are, um I think that generally people when they come out of high school aren't gonna know that unless they find themselves in one of those courts.

SPEAKER_03 2:32

Do you think this is historically always been a problem and it's just kind of coming to fruition now, or do you think this is a more recent phenomenon?

SPEAKER_02 2:40

I mean, I think the civic education, and you know, we focus mostly at TVW and you know, Washington State, obviously, and we have a civic education requirement. Um but to, you know, graduate, so I think it is being taught, and so historically, you know it's kind of getting better, I would say. Um but and let me rephrase. I would say that in the over the last 10 years, students are more interested in government than they ever have been, especially at the federal level. But in that focus on the federal level, there's very little focus on the state level because the people's minds are just so blown, I don't know if that's the right word, but they're just so engaged with what's happening at the federal level that they're not understanding what's going on at the state level, especially with knowing that we us knowing that every law, most laws that are going to affect you on your daily life, um, are at the state level. And I would say that we're not, even in these civics classes, we're not teaching that, that state level government as much as we should. And I think that's kind of been the same. Yeah, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_03 3:52

We've seen historically low public confidence in our systems of government. And traditionally, the judiciary branch has enjoyed the highest levels of public trust, but that trust has been very quickly eroded, according to polling, uh, in the last couple of years. What are the long-term consequences that you see of people just no longer having trust in our government, but specifically in our judiciary?

SPEAKER_02 4:19

I think it's the apathy of we don't have trust, so therefore there's nothing we can do, and therefore we're not going to do anything. Um and I think that is a really huge problem that we see in the general public, but again, focusing specifically on um students is that when a kid who's just about to go vote or is you know automatically registered to vote here in Washington State, you get your driver's license, you can you're pre-registered. Um, one, they don't know that, which I've talked to lots of high schoolers. They're like, I am? Do you have a driver's license? Yes. Okay, so that happens, but um that if they're apathetic and there's like there's nothing I can do, then they're not paying attention to the issues that are being ruled on. Um they're not understanding how laws are made and how the judicial branch, you know, has to follow those laws that are written by the legislature. So they don't understand the checks and balances, and there's no interest in trying to figure them out because automatically they think there's nothing they can do. And I find that is heartbreaking because when I work with students on an individual level or with classrooms on an individual level, and we start talking about the actual issues that they care about, um, and we can start looking. Well, the legislature did this, the executive branch is executing those laws this way, and the judicial branch is reviewing them and reviewing their regulations in this way when they're being challenged, then the apathy goes away. And they see it in those specifics, and it is in that specificity that I think we're lacking in schools for a variety of reasons, but that specificity is where we're really going to engage students and in the general public, I believe.

SPEAKER_03 6:01

What do you think? Um so we talked about getting kids engaged in the specifics of democracy as a way to combat apathy. What are some of the other hurdles that you think we're facing in getting youth today involved in government at every level?

SPEAKER_02 6:18

Um, I mean, so certainly apathy. Let me think about this one for a second. That's definitely my go-to of well, you know, why aren't why aren't students getting involved? I mean, lack of knowledge, but I think those kind of two things tie together. I would say that in the classroom, we see a variety of different um classroom styles. And I mean, and I hate to, you know, slam on schools, but schools that have 40 kids or 35 kids in a classroom, it's really hard for anyone to feel engaged in that way or for a teacher to have that direct connection. And we know that personal connections to things are going to be the things that are going to engage students, and I think that lack of connection, which is not the teacher's fault nor the students' fault, but often the system's fault. And that in itself is something that we could engage with on a governmental level and look at how the three branches are, you know, um delving into that issue. And we often think um I think it's interesting that the general public, I think, thinks that kids, if they are going to be interested in issues, are gonna be interested in K through 12 issues and education issues. Like obviously kids want to follow education issues. I've found that certainly education issues are of interest to kids, but really when you ask them, what are you passionate about, they want to know about housing or the environment or AI, and it's not always just the things that affect them personally, like today, but the larger, you know, issue that we're looking at. Um, and I just also wanted to say like media literacy is a huge, big, big thing that of course we need to address. And lateral reading could help, looking at a variety of different sources. At TVW, you know, we firmly believe that students and the general public should have access to primary sources of what's happening in our government. So they should be looking at both what the Democrats are saying and what the Republicans are saying, and examining that, critically thinking about those things, and then having that access to ask further questions of those elected officials. And I think that's so important.

SPEAKER_04 8:27

Hi, I'm Louise Jibet, and I'm the CEO of iCivics.

SPEAKER_03 8:30

There's kind of a perception that kids, particularly K through 12, they don't care about government, they don't care about news, they don't care about what's going on, they just maybe want to play video games and hang out with their friends. Do you think that's a correct assumption?

SPEAKER_04 8:45

Ah, listen, uh when has that not been true? That's my answer to it. Like to be uh frank, uh why should they care uh uh unless we make uh it plain to them what this deterioration in the existing order will mean to their lives, so that's one. And the second thing is that uh we we have a system that from their perspective, particularly the youngest generation uh today, it hasn't worked, hasn't worked at all to solve common problems, right? Uh we've had uh if you just take within their experience uh school shootings, protecting children really needs to be a central priority, for example, right? And it hasn't worked. We've tried a lot of things and but they haven't worked. And I so I think that that's the issue for them. We have to make sure that the way we explain the system is a two-way street. Yeah, you need to care about this because if you don't care about this, this is what will happen to your life. But also, the American experiment is not a checkbook. It it is not a place where you can just live and survive. It requires you to be involved. This is a very demanding system of citizens, right? Our founders created a system that isn't based on ethnic origin or any other thing. It is based on a series of rules, but it requires you to be involved. So all of those things that don't work right now, whatever they are, they can be changed, or they can be adapted, or they can be made to work to solve problems. And we we take a very nonpartisan approach. It is not about wanting a particular outcome, it is simply uh equipping new citizens so that they can ensure that the rules are uh set up so we can solve problems. And and that's uh a very difficult message, but it is a message that can resonate if we if we uh carry it the right way in a way that's relevant to their lives.

SPEAKER_03 10:59

What do you think are some of the hurdles that students or youth face in trying to be involved? Is it just a a wanting it issue or an education issue, or are there other barriers in place?

SPEAKER_04 11:09

Well, I think it's definitely a one we need to do it issue. So civics has been in the decline for many, many decades. Uh we have a system that has prioritized literacy skills, both uh math, science, and reading, uh, to the detriment of social studies. I think that's a real problem, especially today. Um, but in order to reverse that trend would require a lot of energy from a lot of people to make this a priority. Uh we have a growing movement, uh it's called uh Civics Now that iCivics runs. It is a 450-member organization. That organization includes a lot of different organizations that across the spectrum of ideolog ideological thinking viewpoints, uh, museums, uh, all sorts of different uh groups coming together to say civics uh should be a priority. We then have a set of policy team that is distributed amongst the region in our country. We do work at the federal level as well. But the goal of all of that is to establish enough time and importance in K-12 so that we actually teach civics and history uh in a way with enough depth that students can understand some of the things that we were just talking about, why we require a system that has compromise baked into its system, for example, why pluralism and viewpoint diversity are really important. So those are uh two of the structural pieces uh that we try to push for. And um, once we have that, we need to train educators. So K-12 educators in social studies, they are fantastic, but they need support just like every other educator in our country does. And right now the level of support for them is uh incredibly limited. Uh that can all be changed and it can be improved, but it does require a lot of focus attention. So if I had to say one thing that uh the legal profession could do would be to get involved in that, right? In pushing for the infrastructure we need to make sure that uh the young people are actually even exposed to these ideas, right? So that's uh that would be one step anyway.

SPEAKER_01 13:38

Erwin Chemarinski. I'm Dean and Professor of Law at the University of California Berkeley School of Law. We do a poor job of civic education in this country. There are many measures of this. More people can name some of the seven dwarfs that can name justice on the Supreme Court. Half the people don't know how a law is adopted in Washington, third of the people can't name the branches of the federal government. I think that the legal profession, lawyers, judges, academics have an obligation to do a much better job of educating the people. Part of that education has to be about what judicial independence is, part of it is about the rule of law is, and people understand why an independent judiciary is so integral to the rule of law.

SPEAKER_03 14:26

What advice would you have for judges, legal professionals, um, who want to engage in this dialogue, who want to engage in civic education, but maybe are struggling to effectively communicate these often very complex topics in a way that the public can engage with?

SPEAKER_01 14:44

I think to communicate with the public, one needs to do it. So judges and lawyers and academics need to be going to middle schools and high schools, rotary clubs and lions clubs and other civic organizations and talk about the rule of law, talk about judicial independence, and to do so in a way that people can relate to. Some people, you're right, more naturally can communicate to a larger audience. For some, it will take more time. But as with anything else, the best way to learn how to do it is by doing it.

SPEAKER_00 15:28

I also served as the former chief trial judge of the United States Coast Guard and currently as co-founder and CEO of Judicial Pathways and Leadership Strategies LLC. As the former president of the National Judicial College, one of the things I did earlier on in my tenure was to really take heed of Sandra Day O'Connor's call that anyone who is involved in doing justice must also be involved in educating the public, must be involved in civic education. And so one of the things that we instituted is a program called Reading and Robes, which essentially judges in their black robes going to schools, uh, reading a book as part of promoting literacy, but also a book that's related to the rule of law, or a story about a judge. Or when one book is about Justice Sotomayor and how she became a justice, from being a prosecutor, uh federal prosecutor uh to becoming a judge. And um along the ways how uh she viewed uh rule of law. So we go out there and and have judges out there talk about what judges do, but also instilling in um the young folks uh the idea of rule of law. So education is at every single level uh of our society, and I know one of the speakers talked about educating um adults. I think there's a I think there's a, you know, while we think about civic education for young people, there's also a need to um have civic education for adult learners as well. So um it's important for all of us uh as judges and lawyers to go out there and educate our community. Um because there is, you know, obviously a uh aura of uh power or disengagement in terms of um you know someone in that position of authority and um also sometimes the buildings themselves poses a um a distance between uh the people we serve and the people who access it. So um so it's a shared responsibility, I think. Um and for lawyers um and then judges and lawyers have actual um ethical duty uh to promote uh independence of justice or the integrity of the system. And so um it it always um sometimes concerned me that sometimes people read those obligations um in a way that you know they feel like it's constraining them or restraining them from uh doing what they need to do. So uh so those also needs to be kind of read in a way that actually uh compels people to do their duty.

SPEAKER_03 18:41

So we for those particular I'm thinking particularly judges and attorneys who want to become messengers spokespeople for a functional democracy. They they want to be talking about these concepts. Um what are what is some advice you might offer them about how they can effectively communicate the complexities of our legal system and these concepts to the general public a little bit better?

SPEAKER_04 19:09

Um so, first of all, get out of your bubble. Start publishing in a new uh new places. Uh anybody who's willing to hear your voice, that's not other sets of lawyers and judges. Uh uh, give me a call, uh, actually. And uh uh but there are there's a lot that should be done. I think we're back in close to the system at the formation of our country uh in the years 1774 and and um and forward, where actually publishing matters, where ideas matter. And I think it's important to have these voices out there. I I think that they obviously uh uh just stated plainly, uh putting the ideas in the most concrete consequences possible without doing it in a uh I'm better than you kind of thing. Uh just ex just out uh laying out the facts is really important. But I think I think publishing op-eds or uh contributing to conversations in your town, uh going out and meeting with students in schools, in colleges, in uh vocational school, anywhere you can uh is very, very important as long as uh we're talking as though uh we're on an equal playing field. We're all citizens of this country, and we all have to grow up uh together, and uh we all just need to understand. I think these are not concepts that people are very familiar with, and so we need to make it to bring it down to uh listen, if you want better lighting in your streets so there's less crime, like you need to be on the lighting committee of your town. Like that's it, there's no other way. Like it so I'm not even talking about big national things, like please don't talk about national things. Talk about local things where uh in in what is happening uh immediately in your in your neighborhood. When we talk to kids uh and we ask them to take up an issue, for example, to see what you know how they can understand uh the infrastructure of policy on a particular issue, uh oftentimes they take up school lunch. It's a tough one. I I would not advertise uh advocate for that, but um, but some of them take up uh accessible ramps for uh schools or um the availability of oral uh dentistry tools or um resources for their town. I all of these projects are things. One the last one was uh in Pennsylvania that one of our youth fellows uh worked on. That project still exists. He started it, but then the community got behind it, and now there's better oral health for uh their community. And that those are very simple things. And just you know, uh take up uh some issue and explain how the regulations or the process work. In order to do that. And once a child or a student finds their voice or has an impact of any kind, the likelihood they will be impact uh active in civic life is very, very high for the rest of their life. And a lot of people are looking for huge solutions, big national changes. Do one thing, do it well. A small thing is best.

SPEAKER_02 22:24

I feel that our youth today, and probably sent forever, thinks that they're not listened to and that their opinion is not heard and it doesn't matter. And we as adults know that that's not true. That most adults do think that youth's opinion matter, and we are looking to what they have to say, but I don't know if we're telling them that. Or we're validating their opinion, validating their questions. So if somebody in the profession is talking to a high schooler, asking them first what they want to know and then responding to that. Now, of course, you're gonna have to tell them a bunch of things that they don't want to know too, to be able to get to that foundation. But validating their questions and validating what they do already know is gonna go a long way.

SPEAKER_03 23:10

If we had some of your students, let's say middle school, early high school students here right now, what are the questions you think they want to be asking our judges and legal professionals about the judiciary right now?

SPEAKER_02 23:25

I mean, I think that they do want to know, is the judiciary really being challenged right now? Is it at threat? Because you hear it in the news, you hear it being talked about, and I think they want to understand, is it at threat, and then how so? I think they want to understand how the judiciary comes in and how they are involved in the lawmaking process. They know they're taught that the judicial branch interprets the laws. What does that actually mean in practice? Um youths who are involved in the justice system, um we work with those students too, they only see the judicial branch as the people who are sending them to jail. What else do they do? And it's really hard for them to divorce those ideas, and knowing that the judicial branch does other things as well. And so looking at those particular issues. Or um, how does the state judicial branch differ from the federal judicial branch is a huge thing that our students really don't understand at all. They only know the Supreme Court of the United States. They don't know anything, unfortunately, about the Supreme Court of Washington State, even though they could contact a Supreme Court judge here in Washington and they would probably talk to them because they're right there and want to engage with those students. And so um I think there's a lot of foundational knowledge that they really want to know so that they can grapple with the issues, um, and then using those examples of whatever case they want to use going through. Like we were looking at uh the WSU case that is was heard before the Supreme Court, the Washington Supreme Court, and they haven't released their ruling yet on um Sam's Law and drinking and sororities and things like that. I think that would be an excellent example once the ruling comes out to really talk to students about how it started, um, how it went from Superior Court to the Court of Appeals to the Supreme Court, and then really showcase those things from the legislative level too of how the law was passed in I think 2019 or something like that. And so those sorts of examples I think would really engage them, and I just don't know if we're doing it as much as we should.

SPEAKER_04 25:40

I think they'd want to ask why it's not working, why they see all of these results that they cannot understand. Why, if if you're talking about older students, uh uh uh why are judges so political? Uh I think there's a big belief out there that uh justices are are partisan now and it's a really damaging uh for uh the federal courts for young people to believe that. And I'm uh I think they they would pose some really tough questions uh about why why that's how how we got here.

SPEAKER_03 26:18

Thank you so much again for joining us. We'll be back next week with more of these fascinating conversations touching on topics like the rule of law and independent judiciary. Until then, we'll see you next time.