Two practices in education--community-based learning and deliberative democratic discourse--have been lauded as highly effective in instilling democratic values in students and preparing them to be active citizens. Both practices have the potential to facilitate the formation of publics in the Deweyan understanding--the building block of democratic society and action. However, while both practices can inspire a raised political consciousness and awareness in students, they do not seemingly materialize into active participation on a civic level, as voting rates for 18- to 29-year-olds continue to be less than 50% and lower than any other age group. This article will briefly examine the potential of both community-based learning and deliberative democratic discourse to encourage citizenship through the formation of Deweyan publics before pivoting to the critiques and possible explanations for their failure to engender action. It will then focus on the concept of "deliberative democracy in community," a method of deliberative pedagogy that bridges the two practices along with an emphasis on democratic education that focuses on a Deweyan understanding of democracy as a way of life. This reframing of civic action as public problem-solving becomes the focal point for Boyte's idea of public work and Honig's conception of "public things." It will close by calling for the academy to reimagine its definition of civic engagement to help it course-correct from an anemic, technocratic modality that ignores the wisdom of the public and fails to galvanize action in its students to a more dynamic form of education for democracy.