/me snickers. I have my whole lifetime to finish writing it out and you want it now? Geez. Such a hurry.
Here's what I can give you. You'll see no lasting systemic change until people start growing up understanding the ins and outs of democracy by the age of 15. This does not even happen in the most affluent neighborhoods today. Education focuses on producing workers for the job market, rather than producing citizens for a democratic society. That's what needs to change. An adult graduating from high school needs to be capable of the highest offices of government immediately, even if they don't meet the age qualification. That capability gives them the tools to intelligently engage with their representatives and public servants as equals: as co-governors. Lobbying cannot be the job of an elite minority; it has to be that thing we all do from 4-6pm, after working from 8-4 and before enjoying dinner and leisure from 6-10.
Because the capacity to govern is properly distributed, you should see the end of the career politician. Instead, occupying offices should have a higher churn rate as more people run and more people qualify and more people have jobs to return to after their stint in office; the actual electoral result approaches random, negating any effective campaign strategy and thus any influence of money. Instead of campaigning for office, office-holders become facilitators for citizen discussion of policy. Their job is primarily to gather and synthesize, to properly weight authority, and to transparently explain how they determined which policy to adopt. The vote becomes a formality, rather than a nail-biting contest aired on national television.
That's what I have right now. It's not much, and it's pretty flimsy, but it's a skeleton to hang my coat on.
I like it! There is certainly a big hole in our school systems - two big holes, actually. The first is, as you say, no real treatment of being a citizen. "How a bill becomes a law" is a (bad) joke. Children need to learn about politics sooner, rather than later. The second hole is the total lack of any personal economic or financial training - how to budget, plan, save, invest, when to get credit, etc. People are thrust into the world with no idea what they are getting into with loans, and the banks get fat from fees and interest, or, when things get really bad, from bailouts.
I agree w/ this too, there needs to be more emphasis on "growing-up sooner". Right now, we are getting/producing more of an extended adolescence. That's why no emphasis on these skills: practical politics/economics. Rather than using education to foister rapid maturity. We are (socially) using the education institution for a hybrid: learning/babystitting. It is like if we arm students with practical skills they might become a problem, WTF?
