This report has outlined several of the key indicators that help us determine the civic health of Kentucky. The citizens of the Commonwealth are like many Americans; they have both civic strengths and weaknesses. The report has included several goals for Kentucky and many initiatives and recommendations that would help us to achieve those goals. We would like to distill these goals and recommendations into the following:

Educate, educate, educate. Civic skills and capacities are not innate, they are learned. While schools are not the only places where these skills and capacities can be learned, they certainly hold great potential to be important locations for civic learning. Much more needs to be done to integrate civic education into our P-12 schools. Innovative programs like Public Achievement are just one positive example. The earlier we can educate our children as citizens the better. At the same time, our education as citizens need not stop with high school. Curricular and co-curricular programming through places like the McConnell Center at the University of Louisville and the Institute for Citizenship and Social Responsibility at Western Kentucky University, among many others, provide Kentucky college students with important opportunities to develop as citizens. Students not only learn important skills and capacities, but also reflect critically on obstacles to a strong democracy and effective citizenship (such as media saturation, rampant consumerism, and social disconnectedness). Course work along with service-learning and volunteering opportunities on our college campuses help to encourage informed and engaged citizenship.

Funding higher education. Our legislators need to recognize the importance of higher education for citizenship. Colleges and universities prepare students to participate fully in society, our democracy and our economy, and college graduates are typically more civically involved. It follows that promoting and supporting higher education opportunities will likely have significant implications for our state’s civic health. Moving beyond the political rhetoric to an authentic commitment to higher education requires restoring much of the funding to higher education that has been cut in recent years, allowing tuition costs to go down, and providing pathways for more students to attend our colleges and universities.

Voting. It is important to recognize that scare tactics about voting fraud detract attention from significant barriers to participation. Voting fraud is miniscule(23) when compared to the large portion of citizens who are not registered or who do not vote. Our public officials need to move forward in instituting mechanisms to make registering and voting easier—whether that be same-day registration, voting by mail, or other efforts. We also need to reexamine legislation limiting the voting rights of those who have served their time in prison and have been released back into society with the expectation that they will be good citizens.

Addressing inequality. Current research on our democracy and our citizens, as well as the data in this report, indicate that poor and marginalized populations are not as civically engaged as others. Inequality tends to breed social disconnectedness and political apathy. We need the time, talents and contributions of everyone to make our communities better and our democracy stronger. Public officials need to see socioeconomic inequalities not only as threats to human dignity but as threats to our communities and our democracy. We need public policies that address existing inequality in Kentucky. These policies will, in turn, likely lead to greater social connectedness, more informed and active voters, and citizens who actively work to improve their communities in myriad ways.

Strengthening our communities and our democracy is no easy task. The data in this report indicate the challenges before us. But strengthening civic education, increasing access to higher education, removing obstacles to voting, and addressing inequality in the Commonwealth are important first steps in shaping Kentucky’s future together.