If a child can get away without knowing civics, then the parents aren't doing a very good job of unschooling IMHO. It's one of the easiest things to teach in daily life because it actually affects daily life all the time. Roads, trash pickup, water, electricity, speed limits, police and fire service, etc. are all around all the time. no5no5's "Mad Men" example is completely true-to-life!

I went to a swanky private liberal arts college with kids who had "good" (and traditional) high school educations. One of my 21yo old peers was talking about voting, but had no idea which political party George H.W. Bush was a member of, though he had been the president for nearly 4 years! So there's a lot of room for improvement in traditional civics channels!

I definitely disagree that radical unschooling is "guaranteed" to produce lousy voters. That's a sweeping and unfair generalization. Many radical unschoolers do a fabulous job.

Certainly I don't go for the notion that it's okay to graduate high school being unable to read or do basic math. But I don't accept that a kid in that situation has gotten a real education either. Nor would 99% or the unschoolers I know. And there are plenty of traditionally schooled kids who can't read. The problem is with the specific execution, not necessarily with the method.

Kriston