I never thought I’d use a Green Day song as a post title, but here we are.
Newsweek recently ran a story about a civic literacy test they conducted. And the results were not good.
They gave the official U.S. Citizenship test to 1000 American citizens, and 38% failed. The exact methodology of the survey wasn’t explicated, so I assume it covered a broad range of demographics and varying degrees of education. Still, it’s the U.S. Citizenship test and it would be nice if American citizens could pass it.
The Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) has been doing a similar, if more in depth, study for the better part of a decade with their Civic Literacy Report (full disclosure: I work for ISI’s publishing arm). In 2008, over 28,000 college students were given a 60 question multiple choice test on American history and institutions (which utilized many of the same questions Newsweek used), and 57% failed.
ISI’s 2011 study further found that the college educated were less civically engaged, less civically knowledgeable, and more liberal than those without a college education. In fact, self-education in regards to civics and American history trumps a college education in terms of leading to civic engagement.
The tests of these two studies by ISI and Newsweek, as well as the methodology, varies, but the results are pretty much the same. Americans don’t really know a whole lot about America, and that’s a problem.
That the college educated know less about America and are involved less in its processes than “regular” Americans is telling. Mostly it’s telling that American colleges don’t teach American history well or at all.
When 57% of college graduates can’t pass a civic literacy test, it’s time to worry…and when those with just a high school diploma are doing better, then we’re looking at a collegiate system that, in general, achieves “negative learning.”
So what’s the solution? That’s where we really get into some muddy water.
From ISI’s 2011 report: “[I]f the American Academy truly wants to produce engaged and public-spirited citizens, the best thing for them to do is spend more time educating and less time indoctrinating.”
Newsweek, on the other hand, dallies in exactly that: indoctrination. It argues that the problem with education is that it is not run wholly by the central government. (It also blames rich people and not-high-enough taxes). It then goes on to bash people who want to slash up to 50% of the American budget because it is wasteful, arguing that being less ignorant of America would cure this “ailment” of the mind, or something.
See? More indoctrination. I fail to see how bringing more and more of the education system under the umbrella of the federal government, while simultaneously black-balling rich people would help to improve education—real education, not indoctrination, because this would certainly help us indoctrinate people.
No, moving towards the further centralization of education is not the answer, not when any decision or hoped-for improvement would have to pass through an even longer hallway of bureaucratic offices, and certainly not when the buzz words swarming about government and society at large are things like multi-culturalism, gender studies, and sexual exploration.
Here’s a thought. Instead of collapsing education into the black hole of failure that is the federal government, why not do the opposite? Let’s take steps to put the education of our kids more into the hands of the people who care about it most: their parents and their teachers.
Cut back on the regulations and the politically correct nonsense and give them some free reign. You might be surprised by how much is learned.
Then again, they’ll probably be less willing to cede their freedom and their money to the federal government, so never mind.
(Full disclosure: I work for ISI’s publishing arm)
