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The founders of the United States were , a movement centered on . This new approach to defining a country 鈥� rather than basing it on language, ethnicity or geographic proximity 鈥� meant the new United States would have to educate its citizenry with the ideas, skills and values necessary to build and grow their democracy.

As a result, the founders and funded. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and others believed it was the to provide that education. Jefferson believed that education would and redress the effect of poverty because education would be available to all children.

Though public schools did not become widespread , the goal of educating informed citizens capable of inquiry and critical thinking was part of the democratic republic from the start. But nearly 250 years after the nation鈥檚 founding, its schools struggle to achieve that goal.

A fourth basic subject

Foundational American educational theorist , who worked and wrote in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, promoted education that would help build and maintain a democracy made up of different groups of people. In his 1916 book 鈥�,鈥� he warned that focusing education only on the 鈥�.鈥�

It is no accident that Dewey鈥檚 career in educational philosophy coincided with the rise of a new field of education, , aimed at cultivating good citizenship to build a stronger American society.

, the term was used by the National Education Association to 鈥渄esignate formal citizenship education and [place] squarely in the field all of those subjects that were believed to contribute to that end.鈥�

That purpose remains today. According to the National Council of the Social Studies, the current goal of 鈥渋s to help young people develop the ability to make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good as citizens of a culturally diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world.鈥�

But since at least the 1980s, the nation鈥檚 public schools have consistently put social studies on the . This process accelerated with the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, which on the 鈥渢hree Rs,鈥� to the .

A 2010 study demonstrated the when it reported that elementary school teachers spent , 11.6 hours on Language Arts, and 5.3 hours on math per week.

A lower priority

As a , I have noticed that social studies is than reading, writing and math in .

For instance, from 1993 to 2008, the time allotted to social studies instruction in third through fifth grade classes in the U.S. Over the same time, math, English and language arts instruction increased. This trend continued, with a 2014 study that documented an 鈥� time per week.鈥�

This reduction in social studies instruction has affected minority students more than others. Federal statistics show that since at least 1998, on tests of civics knowledge .

One study described how that this civic education gap contributes to a , in which poorer people and those from nonwhite ethnic groups vote less. That study declared the gap 鈥渃hallenges the stability, legitimacy, and quality of our democratic republic.鈥� Those comments echo those of Jefferson and Dewey, who believed that the purpose of schools was to prepare children to be citizens.

There was a need for civic education in their time 鈥� and the complexity of modern society and the increasingly obvious fragility of U.S. constitutional government indicate that social studies is more relevant and more vital now than ever before.

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