Jamieson, Kathleen Hall2023-05-222023-05-222013-04-112014-04-04https://repository.upenn.edu/handle/20.500.14332/1993This essay explores the value and state of civics education in the United States and identify five challenges facing those seeking to improve its quality and accessibility: 1) ensuring that the quality of civics education is high is not a state or federal priority; 2) social studies textbooks do not facilitate the development of needed civic skills; 3) upper-income students are better served by our schools than are lower-income individuals; 4) cutbacks in funds available to schools make implementing changes in civics education difficulty and 5) reform efforts are complicated by the fact that civics education has become a pawn in a polarized debate among partisans.© 2013 American Academy of Arts & Sciences & MIT Press, Daedalus (http://www.mitpressjournals.org/loi/daed).CommunicationSocial and Behavioral SciencesArticle