ABSTRACT
A Long-standing and deeply rooted mission in American schools stresses common education/or citizenship in a government based on consent of the governed and rights of individuals. Advocates of this traditional civic mission of schools assume that without effective education for democratic citizenship neither popular sovereignty nor the personal and political rights of individuals are secure. Furthermore, proponents claim that national unity is at risk unless the socially and culturally diverse people of the United States are educated to know and support in common certain civic principles that define them as a distinct people and polity.
