"Calling on federal and state courts to take a more active role in overseeing education standards and benchmarks, Rebell addresses various complex questions, including whether a federal right to education should exist and what types of judicial action would not violate the separation of powers."

Trial

"Michael Rebell has spent a career challenging advocates, courts, and legislatures to establish and provide children a meaningful right to a public education. With Flunking Democracy, Rebell not only sustains that challenge, he urges us all to consider the very purpose of public education, calling for a robust right to an education that prepares all children for effective civic participation. Weaving together empirical evidence, moral and political philosophy, and legal doctrine and strategy, Rebell makes the case that public schools should provide children the civic knowledge, cognitive and analytic skills, experiential opportunities, and fundamental character values that will ensure effective participation in twenty-first century civic life. Nothing could be more important for our collective future."

William S. Koski, Stanford Law School

“Michael Rebell makes a powerful and original case that litigation can and should improve civic education. He skillfully assembles evidence from the existing literature to show that civic education is important for the future of our democracy and requires improvement, then further applies his deep knowledge and experience with education-reform litigation to argue persuasively that courts ought to consider lawsuits requiring states to improve their policies for civic education.”

Peter Levine, Tisch College of Civic Life, Tufts University