Young Americans Lack Civic Engagement, Knowldege of Governmental System

[From article]
Of all I read about July 4 on that celebratory day, by far the most important and not otherwise mentioned anywhere else was an article titled "Celebrating History We Don't Remember" by Ashley Bateman of the Lexington Institute in Arlington, Virginia, which startlingly appeared in the New York Post that very day.
Its essence -- which surprised even me, who has been reporting on this frightening failure of American public education for years:
"Last administered in 2010, the last national civics assessment showed that less than half of eighth-graders understood the purpose of the Bill of Rights and only 10 percent displayed age-appropriate knowledge of our government's system of checks and balances" -- that's the constitutional separation of powers which bars any one of our three branches of government from reigning over the other two, as President Obama has kept doing most voraciously.
[. . .]
An especially knowledgeable source of information on the actual effective teaching of civics in our public schools is CIRCLE: The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, located at Tufts University in Massachusetts.

http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/hentoff070914.php3#.U-stG90--yM

Jewish World Review

July 9, 2014 / 11 Tammuz, 5774
Dangers to U.S. liberties we missed on July 4
By Nat Hentoff