RealClear American Civics: “The Jack Miller Center Works to Reinvigorate American Civics”
By Mike Sabo
In recent months, Mike Sabo at RealClear Public Affairs has been highlighting civic institutions that are working to instill a solid understanding of American civics among students and teachers. The Civic Institutions Series features several programs that have actively partnered with the Jack Miller Center in these pursuits, and this week the JMC itself is featured:
“Furthering the American experiment in self-government – ‘the last best hope on earth,’ as Abraham Lincoln said – begins in the classroom,” says Jack Miller Center president Michael Andrews. JMC works with professors and civic institutions on college campuses to reinvigorate the study of “America’s founding principles and history, an education vital to thoughtful and engaged citizenship.”
The Chicago-based entrepreneur and philanthropist Jack Miller founded the Center in 2004 because he recognized that the “profound lack” of civic knowledge among Americans “threatens the future of our nation,” Andrews says. No one was taking action that matched the seriousness of the crisis.
Andrews observes that “students want to engage in thoughtful discussion about the history and principles underlying their country,” but colleges and universities are “cutting resources” and “neglecting vital fields and topics.” And schools “too often become places where free speech is restricted by administrators, faculty and students.”
In light of these problems, JMC has developed a network of professors committed not to indoctrination but to teaching the American political tradition. With support from donors, JMC helps grow civic institutions on college campuses, hosts national programs such as lectures and panels, and develops programs for K-12 teachers…
Click here to read the entire piece at RealClear >>
Mike Sabo is the Editor at Real Clear Public Affairs’s American Civics portal. He is a graduate of the Van Andel Graduate School of Statesmanship at Hillsdale College.
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