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Public Understanding and Perceptions of the American Justice System - Panel Discussion
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Panel discussion: Civic education.
ASSOCIATE ATTORNEY GENERAL RAYMOND C. FISHER(**): As the American Bar Association survey indicates, the level of education in this country about our governmental and our justice system is appallingly bad. Those of us who have been educated over the years can reflect on our own educations and draw our own conclusions about how good these educations were and where we think they might have been improved. One statistic that I took particular note of in the survey was that very few people really knew what the three branches of government were. Those that did, knew least about what I consider, obviously, the most important branch, the Executive Branch. So, therefore, I challenge this group and lawyers and judges to do the right thing and make sure that the citizens of our country know more about the Executive Branch!
I think, from my own experience, that the challenge that lies before us as adult citizens, lawyers, judges, and those of us working in the government in various capacities, is important and is serious. Therefore, even though we are the last on the program agenda for these two days, I think our mission is no less important because now we are really addressing the issue of how are we going to deal with public attitudes, because the other point in the survey is that most people, young people and adults alike, get their information about our form of government, our institutions of government, through their schooling. We are now going to hear from a very distinguished panel, starting with Chuck Quigley, who is the executive director for the Center for Civic Education. I'm going to briefly introduce everybody. Chuck Quigley will speak on his paper, which is entitled Civic Education: Recent History, Current Status, and the Future. I highly commend it to you. Todd Clark, a good friend of mine, [is] a former colleague from the Constitutional Rights Foundation [CRF], of which you will hear more. Todd is the executive director of CRF in Los Angeles. Jean Craven is the director of curriculum and instruction for the Albuquerque Public Schools. That school system serves 80,000 students in 120 schools. Michael Hartoonian, is director of the Center for Economic Education and is a professor of education at the University of Minnesota. Linda McNeil is currently co-director of the Rice University Center for Education and is also an associate professor of Educat...See the full content of this document
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