I had prepared a response, and somehow it disappeared.

My mother got a higher level of civics than I. I got more than my teenage son. But he has got some training in regard. But he is a low performer in school; there is a limit as to how much we can shove into him.

The current Alberta high school social studies curriculum is quite well designed for teaching history and governance. The problem is that students not destined for secondary education probably won't be taking these courses or show much interest in the content, other than to pass, which means they will forget almost everything.

Our societal values are not set up to make civics (or whatever we want to call it) a high priority. We push this topic onto kids a too little hard, there will be unintended consequences, like a higher dropout rate. The drive has to come from outside the school to give civics a higher priority.

In "To My Countrymen", political author Ben Paine talks about passing a basic civics test to receive a ballot (I got 88% on his test without any studying). While I can see the merits, this change will be politically charged--and later abused to register (or not register) certain voters.