Back to School
America’s public schools must place far greater emphasis on civics and capitalism. Students cannot fully participate in American life if they do not understand either their government or the economic system that shapes their opportunities. Stronger instruction in these areas should not be for optional enrichment, it is a necessary investment to build informed citizens, responsible voters, thoughtful workers, and capable community leaders. It is a bulwark against the idiocy of the current socialist/communist/Marxist movement.
As students return to school each year, the focus is on test scores, technology, attendance, and college readiness. Those issues matter, but they are not enough. One of the most important purposes of education is to prepare young people to understand, protect, and improve the society they will inherit. In the United States, that means teaching students not only reading, writing, math, and science, but also civics and the economic principles behind capitalism.
When schools neglect these subjects, students can graduate with diplomas yet still lack the knowledge needed to understand their rights, responsibilities, institutions, opportunities, and the economic system that shapes much of their daily lives.
Civics education is not a luxury, it is the foundation of self-government. It teaches students how government works, why constitutional principles matter, and how citizens can participate responsibly in public life. It explains representative government, separation of powers, federalism, free speech, voting, jury service, and civic debate. Without this foundation, students may know how to post opinions online but lack the knowledge needed to evaluate laws, understand elections, or hold public officials accountable. A democracy cannot remain strong if its future citizens do not understand how our republic functions or why it is worth preserving.
Recent national results show that this concern is not theoretical. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reported that eighth-grade civics scores declined in 2022 compared with 2018, and the National Assessment Governing Board reported that only 22% of eighth graders performed at or above the NAEP proficient level in civics.
That should alarm parents, educators, and policymakers because it means many students are moving toward adulthood without the civic knowledge required to make informed decisions in a republic. Sadly, the American Federation of Teachers is led by a loon, Randi Weingarten, who bloviates about the evils of Trump rather than the importance of teaching civics. She is a rock-solid progressive Democrat.
The lack of instruction about capitalism creates a different but equally serious problem. Capitalism is not merely a slogan used in political arguments; it is an economic system based on private property, competition, entrepreneurship, investment, prices, profit, risk, and consumer choice. Students who do not learn these concepts may struggle to understand wages, inflation, taxes, credit, business ownership, innovation, or the trade-offs involved in public policy.
If schools do not teach these ideas clearly, students are left to learn economics from headlines, social media, and frustration rather than from facts, examples, and reasoned analysis. No parent wants their child to be influenced by a committed communists like Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed’s pal Hasan Piker or New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
Some may worry that teaching capitalism or civics could become political. That concern is exactly why schools should teach these subjects carefully and honestly. Teaching capitalism does not mean ignoring its challenges. Students should learn that markets can encourage innovation, efficiency, and personal opportunity, while also studying problems such as inequality, monopolies, environmental costs, and economic instability.
Likewise, teaching civics should not become partisan training. It should help students understand the structure of government, the value of civil disagreement, and the importance of evidence-based reasoning. In both subjects, the goal should be education rather than indoctrination.
Schools should therefore treat civics and capitalism as essential parts of a complete education, not as side topics squeezed in when time allows. Students should practice reading founding documents, analyzing court cases, discussing current events respectfully, creating mock budgets, studying entrepreneurship, and debating economic policy with facts rather than slogans. These lessons would do more than help students pass a test. They would prepare young people to vote wisely, spend responsibly, work productively, start businesses, evaluate public policy, and contribute to their communities with confidence.
In summary, back-to-school season should be more than a return to classrooms; it should be a recommitment to the kind of citizens and leaders America needs. A nation cannot expect young people to defend liberty if they have never been taught how liberty is protected, and it cannot expect them to build prosperity if they do not understand how opportunity is created.
Civics gives students the tools to preserve self-government, capitalism gives them the tools to understand work, ownership, innovation, and responsibility. If schools fail to teach these foundations, students may inherit a free society without knowing how to sustain it. Restoring serious instruction in civics and capitalism is not just an academic improvement, it is a safeguard for the future of American freedom, opportunity, and civic life.
To become a citizen of the United Staes a legal immigrant must pass a test about U.S. history and civics. The continued absence of these subjects in the Nation’s school curriculums for the current and future generations will spell doom for the greatest republic in history.