A recent study called America's Report Card indicates fewer people of a young age understand civics and politics and one-third "can barely read"-- but most of them can vote.
The poll shows a group of people who were interviewed when they were in 8th grade, and back then fewer than one in four had a proficient understanding of civics, and fewer than half knew that the Bill of Rights guarantees citizens' right to a jury trial.
Those 8th graders have just finished high school today, and now they're ready to cast ballots in local and national elections.
It's this general lack of understanding of American civic rules, processes and duties that is likely to cause increasing difficulties in future politics because fewer people are interested in how local government works, according to Cleveland State University Associate Professor Dr. Larry Keller.
"People don't understand the levels of government, they don't participate at the local level and they don't understand cities and charters, it's very sad," he says.
The increasing partisanship among US residents makes it easier for people to place the blame for all school failures on their political opponents, but Dr. Keller says the majority of our leaders have let us down on the subject of civics and local participation over these past decades.
"There's now a divorce from where politics really are and what they seem to be, and that makes it very easy to turn it into a contest among personalities," he says, rather than the true rivalry among ideologies and special interests, who are continually more in illicit control of US politics.
"What's happening is politics are being nationalized, they're being hijacked by special interests."