To Once More Instill Patriotism in Students, Auth Wants Declaration of Independence in NJ Classrooms

TRENTON, N.J. – Why America? Test scores and surveys reveal Gen Zers often don’t know, don’t care. Ignorance and cosmopolitism have usurped knowledge and patriotism, through a combination of curriculum neglect and willful vacuity, to the detriment of the Republic that de Tocqueville in 1840 rightly praised as exceptional, Assemblyman Bob Auth says.

To help reverse that disturbing trend, Auth has introduced a bill, “America - Cerebrating 250 Years” (A5123), that requires schools to start each day reciting an excerpt from the United States’ founding document, the Declaration of Independence, to third- through twelfth-graders.

“Our Founding Fathers mined the wisdom of Cicero more than any other Roman statesman. He said, ‘To be unacquainted with what has passed in the world, before we came into it ourselves, is to be always children. For what is the age of a single mortal, unless it is connected, by the aid of History, with the times of our ancestors?”’ Auth (R-Bergen) said. “Our students can’t have a love for and pride in what they don’t know, or worse, are being taught to hate.”

Conservative public intellectuals have long criticized states’ moves from fact-based history classes to social studies, which, according to former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education Chester E. Finn Jr., focuses on political activism and perceived evils of Western civilization, so that “students were inclined to view America’s evolution as a problem for humanity…” Students, E.D. Hirsch Jr. further argues, are exposed to the fragmented, presentist view of history rather than rigorous, fact-based instruction that leads to cultural literacy and an appreciation for the American experiment.

Further, schools’ heavy emphasis on STEM—science, math, engineering and technology—coupled with a decline in colleges requiring American history and civics courses toward degree completion, has eroded students’ rootedness in their American identity. The test scores bear this out: The National Assessment of Educational Progress’s most recent U.S. History Assessment found that only 13% of eighth graders scored at or above proficient. A 2025 Gallup poll found that 41% of Gen Zers polled are “extremely or very proud” to be an American. Only 24% of those identified as Democrats.

Auth envisions classroom teachers or principals quoting from the Declaration’s most cited passage: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”

Additionally, he’s calling for schools to implement age-appropriate instruction that teaches the connection of the Declaration with the Constitution and Bill of Rights, the abolishment of slavery, women’s suffrage, the Civil Rights Movement, and other historical milestones.

“I can’t improve upon Ronald Reagan’s call to patriotism in his farewell address: ‘An informed patriotism is what we want. And are we doing a good enough job teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the long history of the world?’” Auth said. “America has her sins, but she’s the greatest country on earth, and our citizens and guests should learn that you can criticize her and still love her and be proud to be called by her name.”