Not a single thing.

The Declaration asserts important principles: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Self-evident was a fancy way of saying “obvious.” Unalienable means that the rights are impossible to take away or give up.

The >famous image at the top of this post commemorates the signing of the Constitution in 1787, more than a decade after the Declaration of Independence. It became part of the design of the two dollar bill in 1976.

Established in 2004, Constitution Day is formally observed each year in the week of September 17.

Not a single thing. Public education has become a cornerstone of what makes America great, but it is mentioned in neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution.

In several cases, the US Supreme Court has considered whether its decisions created a Constitutional right to education through precedent. The answer is mostly no. By omission, education is a function of government constitutionally left to the states.

One ruling is worth noting. A 2020 federal Michigan appeals court, in a 2-1 decision, held that there is a federal right to an education. According to The National Interest this “relied heavily on the history of public education, with its emphasis on preparing people to be good citizens. The majority stated, “without the literacy provided by a basic minimum education, it is impossible to participate in our democracy.”

Many state constitutions, including California’s, address public education. The founding version of the state constitution established that public school districts should exist. Amendments have dramatically added to the state constitution, but not yet established a state constitutional >right to quality education.

Section 1 of the California Constitution begins:

“A general diffusion of knowledge and intelligence being essential to the preservation of the rights and liberties of the people, the Legislature shall encourage by all suitable means the promotion of intellectual, scientific, moral, and agricultural improvement.”

Abraham Lincoln: “The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.”

Franklin Roosevelt: "Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education."

John Dewey: "Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife."

Nelson Mandela: "Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world."

Abraham Lincoln’s famous (and famously concise) Gettysburg Address linked the ideas of liberty and equality to the endurance of the nation:

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

“Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”

The US National anthem, written in 1854, is a long song —four verses long. Most Americans only know the last lines of the first verse:

O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Congress adopted The Star Spangled Banner as the US National Anthem in 1931.

The preamble to the US Constitution lays out the important reasons. These are values we should still cherish.

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

The classic Schoolhouse Rock song about the Constitution remains the best way to learn its preamble:

Yes and no.

Public elementary schools must begin the school day with “appropriate patriotic exercises. The giving of the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America shall satisfy the requirements of this section.” California Education Code §52720

Public secondary schools shall conduct “daily appropriate patriotic exercises. The giving of the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America shall satisfy such requirement.”

The content of the Pledge of Allegiance and customs related to it have changed over time. In its early iterations, the Pledge of Allegiance was often accompanied by a Bellamy Salute, which became more associated with Nazism. The hand-over-heart gesture officially replaced it as an amendment to the Flag Code in 1942.

“I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

The main source of controversy about the Pledge is whether the mention of God violates the separation of Church and State. The words “under God” were amended into the pledge in 1954 during the Cold War.

You can find a full discussion of this issue here.

Yes. California high school graduation requirements include three years of social science (including U.S. history and geography; world history, culture, and geography; one semester of American government and one semester of economics).