If students are to fulfill their obligations and rights as U.S. citizens they must develop the ability to make careful judgements, based on a reasoned historical perspective and a meaningful conception of the basic democratic values underlying citizenship in our constitutional order. To this end, an agenda of 12 core civic values that are…

To revitalize the civic mission of education, schools must teach the morality of citizenship. Civic morality must be the first priority in the liberal and professional education of teachers and administrators. The core of all curriculum must stress the obligations and rights of democratic citizenship. (VM)

In order to understand the context of the role that human rights should play in civic education in the United States, the era in which those rights were first debated (1789-1790's) must be examined, as well as contemporary political and education trends in the United States and the world. Human rights were at the heart of the democratic…