State Sen. Gene Yaw, R-Loyalsock Township, is right about one problem Pennsylvania faces — and we appreciate his ongoing efforts to address that problem.

The problem is the decline in understanding of how our government functions. While many will point to younger people, the sad truth is that we encounter these shortcomings among middle-aged and even elderly voters as well.

It is important to know how and why our government functions as it does — that our leaders are chosen, both directly and indirectly, by voters in our democracy and that the limitations on their authority are clearly spelled out by our U.S. and state constitutions in our republic.

The benefit of the checks and balances inherent in a democratic republic is that it requires transparency and compromise to truly function.

“I think we have a serious deficit in people understanding how government works,” Yaw said, according to the Sun-Gazette’s report this past weekend. “An awful lot of people say, ‘well, why don’t you just just do this? Well, that’s not quite the way it works.”

Yaw’s yearly seminar helps high school students understand the necessity of compromise, and the underlying truth that if one faction can get everything that it wants all of the time, the unity our nation and society need to thrive will unwind.

We are thankful for the opportunity these students enjoyed to learn about how our government functions — and we hope the program can become a model for how to educate voters of all ages about the importance of debate, consensus-building and a sense of balance.