Education funding and reform are perennial priorities of state legislators. One proposal, State Rep. Pat Grassley’s House File 423, would change high schoolers’ social studies curriculum if adopted. The bill would amend the mandatory curriculum in government, requiring students to study the subject for a year rather than a semester.

In addition to learning about the Constitution and Bill of Rights, students would receive an education in “the federal system of government; the overlapping features and responsibilities of the national, state, county, and local governments; and the tenets of American citizenship, including civility, mutual respect, political discourse, and appreciation of the common public concerns of Americans.” It would also include “the principles of American citizenship.”

Grassley’s proposal would also remove the requirement that schools teach their students about “voting statutes and procedures, voter registration requirements, the use of paper ballots and voting systems in the election process, and the method of acquiring and casting an absentee ballot.”

The removal of this provision was immediately noted by such progressive sources of commentary as Blog for Iowa and ThinkProgress. One group, ProgressIowa, started a petition to “Tell Pat Grassley: Voting is an American Principle.”

Although those groups are correct to the extent that voting is a political act, Iowa’s schools are not awash with cash and have unlimited resources with which to teach young Iowans. A government institution’s resources always should be directed at the most pressing problems that the government’s citizens share. At this point, given the past few years, it is a truism that requires no evidence to say that America’s political process is broken and in need of a fundamental change in how we talk to one another about political issues.

There is a world of difference between teaching the technical aspects of voting and teaching how to vote well. Anyone obtaining a driver’s license has the option of registering to vote or to change his or her political party. When the person’s voter registration card arrives in the mail, stamped on it is his or her polling location. Come election time, both major political parties canvass around neighborhoods offering as many voters as possible forms they can use to request absentee ballots. Precinct workers guide voters through the process.

Voting well, however, is a different story. To teach a person how to vote well is to teach him how to vote according to certain criteria. It is to teach her to value some things rather than others. Grassley’s bill would allow for that challenge to be at least a possibility. Maybe, by teaching young Americans to understand and value the political process, those Americans will do politics more often than elections.

If one of our problems is that politicians are not in tune with the voters they have been designated to represent, maybe part of the problem is that voters do not engage them enough. Obviously the politicians themselves must change, but you can’t expect a sick man to heal himself, can you? He requires the outside help of a doctor. In politics, that doctor is the voter.