"'Students.. are entitled to learn in public schools the 'basic literacy, calculating, and verbal skills necessary to enable children to eventually function productively as civic participants capable of voting and serving on a jury"' (2).

"Today, these technologically oriented, vocational approaches to education and the problem of inequality leave almost no room for the civic alternative" (4).

The second quote extends Allen's critique of the vocational paradigm, briefly mentioning how vocationalism doesn't just dominate, it completely squeezes out space for civic goals, the main goal of education. Allen points out that when schools double down on STEM programs or curricula that get you ready for jobs, humanities and civic education get cut. These quotes reveal how vocationalism narrows the horizon of education. This undermines the democracy/ civic participation itself by crowding out civic preparation. This is important because civic participation is what makes a democracy function, since being able to have alternatives, being able to collaborate with others, is essentially what makes a government function.

"'Today's world economy is the product of explicit decisions that governments had made in the past'" (6).

"The ideal civic agent carries out all three of these tasks—disinterested deliberation, prophetic frame shifting, and fair fighting—ethically and justly" (9).

"Defending the right to civic education...would benefit not only individual students but also society as a whole, advancing both political equality and distributive justice" (15).