Spokane and Coeur d’Alene are the leading cities of the Inland Northwest, both in population and culture. They should be the leading cities in civic learning.

Civic learning has been waning in America for generations. Numerous surveys by both conservative and liberal organizations routinely test the civic knowledge of Americans—with disastrous results. A few years ago, the nonprofit, nonpartisan George Nethercutt Civics Foundation (nethercuttcivicsfoundation.org) tested 800 Americans nationally, asking three basic questions:

Should all American office holders possess a basic understanding of U.S. history, government, economics and foreign policy? 73 percent said “Yes.”

Should America’s schools have a core curriculum subject area in civic learning? 85 percent said “Yes.”

Should all Americans be able to pass the U.S. Immigration test that applicants for American citizenship must pass to become citizens? 67 percent said “Yes.”

Notice that question three had the lowest percentage of affirmative answers. That’s probably because those surveyed thought, “I don’t want to take that test,” so the scores fell off a bit, but still, more than two-thirds answered “Yes.”

A few years ago, the National Endowment for the Humanities concluded that families who are civically knowledgeable are stronger, they volunteer more in their community and they vote more often.

Spokane and Coeur d’Alene can lead the way in civic learning, but it starts in our schools. The Mead School District is contemplating a joint federal grant application with the Nethercutt Civics Foundation for a civics project supported by students and civics teachers that encourages high school seniors to reach out to senior citizens (called the Senior to Senior project) to connect generations by exposing them to one another. At least eight states require high school seniors to pass the U.S. Immigration test to graduate. More than 20 other states have some civic learning requirement.

Author/historian David McCullough, former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and actor Richard Dreyfus have all called for a stronger emphasis on national civic learning, saying that if we don’t address this gap in our education system now, students and future leaders will be without such historical and basic knowledge necessary for the perpetuation of our Constitution, the oldest in world history.

If Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho citizens encourage the region’s schools to teach civics, students, teachers and administrators will react positively and graduating students will be armed with more knowledge of the world and America’s place in it. They’ll have higher expectations of elected officials because they’ll know about public policies. And, perhaps citizens better educated about government will decide to seek public office, relieving some of the frustrations with government so prevalent in politics today.

Another good place to start is with Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and Boys and Girls Clubs. There are about 2.4 million Boy Scouts in America. If every Boy Scout earned his Citizenship in the Nation Merit Badge, think of how they’d be prepared to be leaders possessed of basic knowledge about the American system. The same is true for Girl Scouts and other youth leadership groups.

We citizens have an important role to play. To encourage young people to be civically informed, older Americans must also be willing to learn. It can start by having all American adults pass the U.S. Immigration test. After all, if our laws require that new citizens must pass the test, why shouldn’t the rest of us do so?

Knowing about America makes us all better Americans.