“Citizenship” is an empty label that we use out of habit. It’s not attached to any substantive concepts that schools can meaningfully socialize into children. Where “citizenship” is a paper label and defined mainly in terms of economic relations and pop culture references, what “preparation” is there for schools to do?

I’m reminded of Joe Biden delivering a word salad response to a similar question: https://www.c-span.org/clip/white-house-event/user-clip-bide.... This isn’t a criticism of Biden. There’s not a meaningful answer.

If instead of "prepare young people for citizenship", I had written, "teach young people things useful for maintaining and improving their community and their country", would your reply be essentially the same?