Why Civic Education Matters with David Davenport

Join the Library for an insightful discussion with author David Davenport on his book, A Republic If We Can Teach It: Fixing America’s Civic Education Crisis. Davenport examines the urgent need for better civic education to preserve the republic, highlighting the disconnect between young Americans and the foundational principles of self-government and freedom. Attendees will learn about this important issue and actionable solutions to bridge this civic knowledge gap at this talk.

David Davenport is a research fellow emeritus at the Hoover Institution specializing in constitutional federalism, civic education, modern American conservatism, and international law. During his career at Hoover, he also served in administrative capacities as counselor to the director and the inaugural director of Hoover’s Washington, DC, program. Davenport is the former president of Pepperdine University (1985–2000). Under his leadership, the university experienced significant growth in quality and reputation. He is the cofounder of Common Sense California and the Davenport Institute for Public Engagement and Civic Leadership. He also served on the board of California Forward, a major bipartisan reform group, and was a member of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s California Performance Review Commission. He is a former senior fellow of the Ashbrook Center, where he worked on civic education projects.

Davenport and Jeffrey Sikkenga have co-authored a new book on civic education in 2024, A Republic If You Can Teach It: Fixing America’s Civic Education Crisis. With his colleague Gordon Lloyd, Davenport co-authored Equality of Opportunity: A Century of Debate, which was released in 2023. They also co-wrote How Public Policy Became War (2019), Rugged Individualism: Dead or Alive? (2017), The New Deal and Modern American Conservatism: A Defining Rivalry (2013); These books offer distinctive ways of understanding both historic and current debates between progressives and conservatives in the United States.

A Republic If We Can Teach It: Fixing America‘s Civic Education Crisis is a call to action, an effort to save our republic through better civic education. America faces a crisis in civic education that imperils the long-term health of the country. Too many Americans―especially young people―do not have the knowledge of history and principles necessary to sustain the republic. In what has become a vicious cycle, young people are not learning about their country―its history and how it works―and they grow up disengaged and distrustful. Too many young people do not understand the principles of self-government on which America was founded. And they do not understand America’s history as the story of the struggle to live up to those principles of freedom articulated in documents like the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Instead, too many believe that America’s story is essentially one of oppression, not freedom―injustice, not hope. In the first half of the book, authors Jeff Sikkenga and David Davenport diagnose the problem while proposing solutions in the second half. Truly, America faces a civics crisis and action is needed now to reverse the trend.