It looks like the incoming president of the American Bar Association has been reading many of the same alarming surveys we’ve discussed and has seen enough: He intends to make civics education the hallmark issue of his presidency.
ABA President-Elect Stephen Zack said in an interview this week that he wants the group, the largest voluntary professional organization in the world with more than 400,000 lawyer and law-student members, to take a leadership role in creating a pilot program with other bar associations that would give students from every high school in the country the opportunity to participate in an educational course that would immerse them in civics. His goal is for half of the participants to be minority students.
Zack, a Miami litigator, is the first Latino to be elected to the ABA’s top job and is currently serving one year as president-elect before taking office as president in August 2010.