Everyone would like to see better-informed and engaged Americans. But a measure being kicked back and forth between the Pennsylvania House and Senate isn’t the way to make that happen.

On Tuesday the state Senate unanimously passed its own version of House Bill 564. As amended by the Senate, the bill would require high school students to take the same test immigrants must pass before being granted U.S. Citizenship — and earn a perfect score.

We assume that state legislators’ intent here is to produce better citizens, not simply outstanding test-takers.

That’s a laudable goal — an essential one, really. The decline of civic engagement and knowledge among Americans of all ages has been closely watched and widely reported in recent years.

The problem with this particular plan is that students in Pennsylvania are already required to take hundreds of hours of courses on civics, the main goal of which is “instilling into every boy and girl ... their solemn duty and obligation to exercise intelligently their voting privilege and to understand the advantages of the American republican form of government ...,” according to the Pennsylvania School Code.

The state doesn’t go as far as many others, which tie students’ coursework to assessment and testing requirements.

But does that actually make a difference? Not if you believe the findings of a survey conducted by the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center. In 2016 the center reported that only 25 percent of Americans could name all three branches of the government. Nearly one-third couldn’t name any branches at all.

Why? And if more testing is the answer to Pennsylvania’s problem with civic knowledge, why do so many adult Americans fail basic questions about American government when a majority of states require assessments in civics, and 15 states go even further, requiring students to demonstrate “proficiency” on social studies or civics testing in order to graduate.

The takeaway from this is clear: students sit in class, take the tests, graduate — and promptly forget what they’ve “learned.”

The problem is not that our students aren’t adept test-takers. Legislators can issue all the mandates they want. Students will continue to memorize — and then jettison — the information they need to know in order to score a 100 percent on the citizenship exam.

It will be just another high-stakes test in the years-long deluge of such tests students already endure.

We agree that the importance of civics needs more emphasis and attention. We agree that interested and engaged citizens are in short supply — and that this dearth hurts families, communities and the nation as a whole.

We don’t agree that this is a problem that can be solved with brute force — which is exactly what stuffing kids’ heads with random facts amounts to, regardless of the subject matter.

If they really want to help solve the crisis of civic ignorance in this country, legislators should search for ways to give students’ experiences that provide context and meaning to civics, not more bubble sheets to fill out.

HB 564 has a noble goal, but it’s methods are foolish and simplistic. It’s a shame so much time has already been wasted on it.