A high school senior preparing to vote for the first time cannot explain what level of government is responsible for healthcare, what powers a member of Parliament actually has, or how a bill becomes law beyond a vague memory of a diagram from a class she has mostly forgotten, her citizenship about to become active while her understanding of what citizenship involves remains largely theoretical, the gap between her legal capacity to participate and her practical preparation to do so reflecting an education that treated civic knowledge as one subject among many rather than as foundation for