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Civic engagement has been a popular topic this year. During the General Assembly session, members pushed a long list of bills they hoped would inspire citizens to care enough to improve Indiana’s abysmal voter turnout. Making school board races partisan, for example.
While I share our legislators’ hunger for greater civic engagement, I think they have the whole thing backward. Instead of trying to game turnout by tying local offices to national politics, perhaps we should instead focus on educating Hoosiers about the level of government that’s closest and inherently most responsive to their needs and voices.
The simple truth is that nearly everything schools teach us about government is focused on the federal level. We learn that Millard Fillmore was our 13th president, sing about how Congress is supposed to function (care to join me in “I’m Just a Bill”?) and memorize the preamble to the U.S. Constitution. Indiana gets a few hours in fourth grade. Local government? Next to nothing.
Should we then be surprised when Hoosiers believe the governance that matters most in their lives takes place within the District of Columbia’s 61 square miles? We even codify the importance of national government by listing its candidates first on our ballots (followed at a respectful distance by their state counterparts).
Yet aside from times of national crisis like war, the leaders who have the greatest impact on our daily lives are those tucked near the bottom of the ballot: county officials, municipal representatives and the folks who demand the most property tax dollars, school boards.
The average Hoosier understands little about local government and its crucial role in their daily lives. Nor do they understand how their tax dollars fund its operation. Ask about the president, and they’ll speak with confidence. Inquire about the comprehensive plan that will largely determine what their home will be worth in a decade or the curriculum affecting whether their teen will still live under their roof by then and you can count on a blank stare.
Not convinced? Spend a few minutes reading one of your community’s social media chatter sites. The level of ignorance and misconceptions about local government and issues is terrifying. Unfortunately, that’s become the primary source of information for most voters. How could they not be dissatisfied and disconnected?
The likelihood of any Hoosier student being elected to one of our state’s 11 seats in Congress is microscopic at best. At the same time, local governments struggle to find good candidates, making truly competitive local races a rarity. Shouldn’t we be teaching students about the people whose decisions have a direct impact? Shouldn’t we prepare them to understand and accept the responsibility of serving in those roles as adults?
Imagine if we focused on helping Hoosiers of all ages understand the importance of their local governments in their daily lives. What if they knew how to have their questions answered and their grievances heard by the responsible parties? Suppose we could replace commonly repeated myths and misconceptions with incontrovertible facts?
I suspect we’d have less of a need to look to the Statehouse and Capitol for help. Maybe we’d even expect the people we elect to state and federal government to behave more like their local counterparts.•
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Flood is a writer and served on Plainfield’s school board for 23 years.
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What a good Forefront contribution. Flood makes a great point about civic focus.
Please, IBJ, more of this good stuff and less partisan/blob hackery (Hornedo, Wagner-Chartier, Atlas, D. Daniels come to mind).
I would have to agree completely. I work with a local scout troop, and I teach one merit badge in particular that deals with civic education. It’s called Citizenship in the Community.
Kids have no idea how much local government does for them or what any property tax dollars do. They have no idea how to report something as simple as a pothole or public safety issue like a particularly dark intersection or even a dark street light. there’s little or no understanding of how the public schools are run or even local government.