By Alan B. Bookman

Nearly 44,000 Florida residents willingly – in fact, quite happily – recently faced a challenging test of their knowledge of our government and its history, and they all passed.  You may be surprised to learn the test takers were all immigrants to the United States taking the examination for citizenship. You may be even more surprised to learn that most native-born Americans, and most Floridians, are not required to take a civics course and many would be unable to pass a similar test.

In fact, according to the Florida Law Related Education Association, here in Florida less than 10 percent of our counties require civics instruction in the schools.  As a result, many children, like their parents, are in the dark when it comes to the light of democracy.  They have only a vague, and often inaccurate, picture of our government.

The Florida Bar, along with the American Bar Association, wants to help change this picture for the better. This year, we have supported an important new initiative urging all Florida school districts to mandate a year of civics education in middle school.  By introducing young Floridians to the ideals of our American democracy, and by teaching them to fully assess the realities of our government, our schools can help build new generations of active citizens who know enough about democratic principles to defend and protect them.

While this may sound like a lofty goal, it is in fact based squarely in the camp of necessity and survival.  A recent Harris poll by The Florida Bar found that while 90 percent of all Floridians agreed the concept of checks and balances in government is important, only 59 percent could correctly identify the three branches of government that jointly constitute this delicate democratic balancing act.  For those of you keeping score, that is in essence a failing grade.  While 59 percent of those polled correctly identified the branches of government as "executive, legislative and judicial," nearly 20 percent answered "local, state and federal," while 16 percent said "Democrat, Republican, and Independent."

Our collective score declines even further when quizzed about the definition of "separation of powers," an essential principle of our government.  Only 46 percent could correctly explain the concept.  The question that arises from these results is: If we cannot understand the basic doctrines of our government and the safeguards that have been designed to protect our freedom, how will we know when they are being either subtly or directly undermined?

New governments around the globe, most notably Iraq and Afghanistan, are struggling to adopt and abide by democratic notions, and the challenges they face have received a great deal of attention. Established democracies face threats and challenges to their survival as well, though they may not be as easy to identify.  Some threats come from outside. Others develop from within, taking the form of ignorance and error, or worse still, corruption. 

Our schools have been the subject of a robust debate about the direction and components of a good curriculum, but there has been little debate about the lack of civics education. Our children, and the democracy they will inherit, deserve more. By supporting the effort to add mandatory civics instruction in Florida middle schools, and by urging all school districts to join the cause, we can ensure that today's students will be better citizens tomorrow.

Mr. Bookman is a partner in the Pensacola law firm Emmanuel Sheppard & Condon where he focuses his practice on commercial and real estate law. He is the 2005-6 elected leader of the 77,000-member Tallahassee-based Florida Bar, a professional and regulatory organization established by the Florida Supreme Court.

This article originally appeared in the Pensacola News Journal