Record youth voter turnout in 2018 and 2020 came amidst waves of heightened enthusiasm around those elections. National get-out-the-vote campaigns channeled that energy to successfully mobilize millions of young voters. But in the post-pandemic world, election excitement plummeted, revealing systemic barriers to voting that impacted the rates at which young people (18-29 year olds) were able to exercise their vote. And now, as enthusiasm appears to be making a comeback, we have a unique opportunity to address those barriers in a way that keeps the enthusiasm of the past month going far into the future.

In my organizing experience as Co-Chair of the Harvard Votes Challenge, I’ve seen how quickly youth engagement — not just in the election, but with US democracy at large — has plummeted in recent years, and my observations closely align with the national picture. The most recent Harvard Youth Poll found that only 9% of young Americans aged 18-29 believe the country is “generally headed in the right direction,” over two-thirds are more fearful than hopeful about our country’s future, and institutional trust has plummeted to all-time lows. Bursts of enthusiasm may obscure this crisis of faith, but they do not fix it. We cannot continue to rely on those bursts to sustain youth voter turnout in the long run.

And as my peers became less engaged, I noticed that many of them suffer from a lack of election preparation as well. They weren’t taught how to research issues. They weren’t taught how to request absentee ballots. They weren’t even taught how to register to vote! The problem is pervasive.

We’re now facing a dual crisis of civic engagement among young people in America: a crippling shortfall of confidence in our democracy coupled with a total lack of procedural knowledge for how to participate in that democratic system. Even when young Americans are excited about a specific campaign or election, these barriers still hold them back. In the face of such a crisis, a surprisingly simple solution emerges: fixing high school civics education.

Civics education in high school is foundational in encouraging democratic engagement for the rest of one’s life. If done correctly, it provides practical preparation for voting and helps form values of civic responsibility, addressing both parts of the aforementioned crisis. But, as it stands today, high school civics education has failed to meet the moment.

Polling from last fall shows just how underprepared young Americans are for civic participation coming out of high school. Just around half of young people were taught in high school to appreciate the importance of their vote, but even more strikingly, only a quarter of young people were prepared for all four of the following key procedural aspects of voting: how to register to vote, knowing voting deadlines, how to research candidates and issues, and how to request and submit ballots. Across the board, very few members of Gen Z have entered adulthood ready to exercise their civic duty in practice. The consistency of these trends across demographic divides suggests a systemic flaw in civics education.

Teaching students the importance of their vote goes hand in hand with teaching them the process of voting itself. Data overwhelmingly suggests that those who are more engaged and informed about politics are far more likely to vote and are more hopeful about democracy at large. And those who were prepared to vote in high school are twice as likely to be politically engaged!

It all starts in the classroom. High school is the one time where almost everyone goes through a system capable of teaching them the fundamentals of how to be an engaged citizen. However, civic education at present tends to emphasize traditional fact-based knowledge and test preparation over participatory instruction. While learning about political debates in early American history can absolutely help inform why our democracy works the way it does, such lessons do very little to convince high school students that they should go out and vote in this century. That has to change.

Will implementing participatory civics instruction into the high school curriculum be a cure-all for our voting woes? Of course not. There are a whole host of barriers facing young voters that have to be overcome beyond insufficient high school civics education, from navigating restrictive ID laws and busy schedules to researching policy platforms and finding motivation to vote. But it’s a great start. Improving high school civics education is a critical step in the right direction because it would remove one of the most significant barriers to voting and lend momentum to a growing culture of democratic responsibility among American youth.

And now — as young voters are excitedly tuning into the election — is the perfect time to take this step. Immediately after President Biden announced he was not running for reelection, there was a massive spike in youth political enthusiasm. As memes of coconut trees and references to being “unburdened by what has been” have swept across the internet, negativity has given way to hope, optimism, and energy on a level that hasn’t been seen in quite some time.

We must capitalize on the momentum of the 2024 election cycle to institutionalize civic engagement on a whole new level. The disengagement of the past few years revealed the structural barriers facing young voters. All of the newfound excitement around the election means we can finally confront those barriers head-on. This is a unique opportunity to strengthen the foundation of our democracy, rekindle faith in our political system, and revitalize young Americans’ hope for the future.

In the long run, we cannot solve the issue of youth disengagement unless we address the root cause. Young Americans need a reason to care. They need greater representation, and institutions need to regain their trust. Until then, we’ll keep treading water; but reforming civics education should get the ball rolling. It’ll make more years of record youth turnout possible, and speaking selfishly, it’ll make my job as a college voter organizer a little easier. Give young people the tools to make their voices heard at the ballot box and I guarantee you they will put those tools to good use.

Students, parents, teachers, administrators, curriculum designers, and community members can all play a role. It takes a village to raise a voter. So ask yourself: what can you do in your community to help students become engaged citizens for the rest of their lives? Take the first step today and encourage everyone you know to make a plan to vote: allin.vote/plan.