By J. TAUB
Former longtime Los Alamos resident

Part of the reason we’re enduring the political climate we’re in is because for some unfathomable reason we don’t require our schools to teach our form of government.

Civics must be made mandatory in our school systems. Civics, which explores the rights and duties of citizenship including its theoretical, political and practical aspects, must become a required course in our middle and high schools.

According to the American Federation of Teachers, as of 2018 only nine states and the District of Columbia required one year of U.S. government or civics, 30 states required a half year and the remaining 11 states had no civics requirement.

How can we expect people to understand the way our democracy is supposed to work, its freedoms AND responsibilities, when we don’t bother teaching it to our own citizenry? Immigrants who’ve become citizens know more about how our government is supposed to work than far too many of those born into citizenship.