And even me.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15014682/site/newsweek/

Quote :

"‘Letting Students Down’ A new study finds that even top undergraduates are woefully ignorant of history and civic government Sept. 26, 2006 - Does going to college make students better-educated citizens? A new study of more than 14,000 randomly selected college students from across the country concludes that the answer is often no. Not only did many respondents at the 50 participating colleges fail to answer half of the basic civics questions correctly, but at such elite schools as Cornell, Berkeley and Johns Hopkins, the college freshmen scored higher than the college seniors. Josiah Bunting, III, chairman of the National Civic Literacy Board of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI), the nonprofit that funded the study, decried “the students’ dismal scores” as providing “high-quality evidence of… nothing less than a coming crisis in American citizenship.” Mike Ratliff, a senior vice president at the ISI spoke to NEWSWEEK’s Pat Wingert about the study’s findings, which were released today. NEWSWEEK: What was the point of this study? Mike Ratliff: We were really concerned about whether colleges and universities were teaching enough about the workings of American democracy and institutions to enable the next generation of leaders to be effective and informed citizens. So we had a representative sampling of students take a test to find out what they had learned about our basic institutions.[/b] How did you pick the participating schools? We surveyed 14,000 students at 50 schools as part of the largest study ever done on this topic. The University of Connecticut’s Department of Public Policy picked 25 schools on a random basis. Then we oversampled among the most selective schools, and added 25 schools like Harvard, Yale and Princeton. What did you find? Basically, we found that the freshmen arriving on campus were not very well prepared to take on their future responsibility as citizens. They earned a failing grade on our test. [The average participating freshman got 51.7 percent of the questions correct.] But after four to five years in college, we found that seniors, as a group, scored only 1.5 percent better than the entering freshmen. What was most surprising was the finding that at 16 of the 50 schools, the freshmen did better than the seniors. We were startled by the extent of what we call “negative learning”. When courses are not offered or required, the students forget what they knew when they entered as freshmen, and that 16 included some of the best schools in the country, Berkeley, Johns Hopkins, Georgetown, Duke. What should college students know that they don’t know? We looked at each field: government, American history, economics and international affairs, and came up with 60 themes. We then had classroom faculty come up with 60 questions that covered those specific areas that every citizen should know something about, like the thinking of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King and what part of the century the American Revolution and Civil War were fought. Why does this matter? It matters because we want to leave an America to our children and grandchildren that will continue to offer the freedom and opportunities we enjoyed ourselves. If you don’t understand how a democracy operates or what the Bill of Rights guarantees, you may not be able to do your part to preserve these institutions into the future. Is there a correlation between civics knowledge and being a good citizen? Perhaps the most encouraging finding of this study was confirmation that knowing your history and becoming an engaged citizen goes hand in hand. Those who were taking the most courses and learned the most were the most likely to be registered to vote and to engage in other civic and community activities. Based on these results, would you conclude that a college education doesn’t necessarily make a student a better-educated citizen? I think higher education is letting down the students that have been entrusted to them, because they are not advancing their knowledge of American government or its institutions. However, we did find that on some campuses—like Rhodes College and Grove City College, that the amount of learning that was taking place was disproportionate to someplace like Harvard or Princeton. These are campuses that value classroom education and the professors are more focused on making sure the students are learning. Did the students attending the more prestigious colleges start out with higher scores than students attending other types of colleges? Yes, they started out with higher scores [as freshman, they got 60-70 percent of the questions correct.] But the seniors at Rhodes and Grove caught up with many of them by senior year, while the scores of many of the students at the prestigious schools dropped by senior year. We think everyone’s knowledge should have advanced. Many colleges no doubt think that civics is something students are supposed to learn in high school. This should be approached like math or any other subject. You learn some math in kindergarten, and then get more sophisticated math in elementary school and in high school. Every level should advance your knowledge. We don’t agree with the notion that students should study American history in 5th and 11th grade and then never again. Students need to be exposed to things repeatedly in life, and they need to get an appropriate education at every point. The colleges have a responsibility to ensure that their graduates understand our history and what it means to be an American. They are failing to such a degree that their students are leaving their institutions having forgotten what they picked up in high school. Is this a new problem? Or has it always been this way? I think there has been a deterioration of rigor in college and university curriculums. Derek Bok, the former president of Harvard, published a book last year called “Our Underachieving Colleges,” and it expressed his concern that students were not getting the kind of education colleges and universities committed to in previous generations. What’s the solution? We don’t have a cookie cutter solution, but we do believe that every college and university should commit themselves to assessing the effectiveness of their educational program, and we think there is no better way to do it than by testing freshmen, and then after they’ve taken courses at the college level, test them again as seniors, to see what they have learned over the period of time they spent on campus. We would also urge legislators and other key decision makers to hold colleges and universities accountable for effective civic education. © 2006 Newsweek, Inc."

Again, do we play attack the messenger? The source? The study? The methodology? Or does anyone actually want to discuss the implications of the study?

How can an informed citizen expect to fulfill his constitutionally charged duty to give his government (that's Ayn Rand's group of robbers we hire to protect us from others, or the government of the #6 most competitive nation in the world, or the #1 best nation in the world to live in, whatever distinction you make) anything resembling informed consent when even the minority that attend college, and become seniors, have little understanding of civics?

Can we really not hold ourselves accountable for permitting the educated citizens of the nation to be blindly unaware of history?

[Edited on September 27, 2006 at 2:51 AM. Reason : ...]

9/27/2006 2:50:03 AM

Ignorance is Strength.

The less we know about our freedoms, the easier it will be for them to be taken away. I mean there is a clown on this very board who thinks that 19th century democrats are the exact same ones as today!

[Edited on September 27, 2006 at 3:02 AM. Reason : The More You Know.....*star*]

9/27/2006 2:57:19 AM

I haven't taken a civics class since about the 9th grade.

After that it was just an AP US History course that focused more on the US govt than anything else I've taken.

Since then I've taken nothing dealing with civic government, and honestly a lot of that is bleeding out of my mind.

History I try to keep up with. Gotta love those history channel/discovery/etc specials. Most people are bored with history though. There's all those little details to know and most of them will be damned if they have the patience for it.

9/27/2006 3:24:48 AM

While it's not a scientifically established certainty, I'd venture a guess that this is what's more directly or indirectly responsible for low turnout than any other factor.

And if it isn't, then that fact represents the worst illness American Democracy knows.

9/27/2006 3:41:57 AM

It would honestly make sense for public schools to teach more information about the government, its functioning, its little bitty parts, all of its little details. Not something you cover in one 9th grade class, but that you cover in one class each semester or something. However that'd require giving kids another class for each of 3 years... That would be ugly as shit.

Still, wish I knew more and had the time to take more civics classes (kind of have my semesters planned out through graduation and don't quite have the patience for non-major classes at this point).

9/27/2006 3:46:46 AM

this is all very shocking

9/27/2006 5:57:28 AM

I am, in fact, woefully ignorant of many important parts of history and some parts of governmental function.

I usually try to either not argue when it comes to one of these two subjects, or else I will go and look it up before I do. I wish I had taken a history class at NC State. The truth is, I was going to take one as an elective each and every semester but I couldn't find one that had seats that interested me. Only when I was a senior did I find one I wanted to take, but I took an easier class instead because I was taking classes credit only and getting drunk all the time.

9/27/2006 7:53:16 AM

This study is just an inevitability of any market-based society. Rational ignorance -- the benefits someone would gain from learning this information is vastly outweighed by the costs in lost productivity for them to do so.

The fact most Universities now focus on job training instead of actual education is a symptom of that, not a cause.

9/27/2006 9:29:40 AM

that doesn't surprise me at all

I could be more knowledgeable myself

Quote :

"Ignorance is Strength. The less we know about our freedoms, the easier it will be for them to be taken away"

you know what though... the blame can be placed all the way back to elementary schools

9/27/2006 9:33:00 AM

people are bad at remembering dates and might confuse important people...big whoop. I DARE ATTACK THE MESSENGER.

9/27/2006 10:12:41 AM

In all honesty, I'm not too suprised by the results of this study. A few years ago, there was a highly publicized story in Greensboro where a 9th grade honors civics teacher gave each student in his class a copy of the United States citizenship exam to take. If I remember correctly, no one passed it.

If a high school student immediately after the completion of 9th grade honors civics at what was considered one of the most prestigious high schools in the state can't even complete the very citizenship exam we use to screen new immigrants, I have little hope for most of the nation. It is a very sad state of affairs.

Though I imagine that if we attempted to force more civics down the throats of students, people would label it as fascism and attempting to indoctrinate our students, wasting time that could go into more "important" topics like science, math, English, etc.

9/27/2006 10:20:47 AM

^ Kinda makes you wonder if immigration's really to blame for America's slippage in global competitiveness. I'd wager that once again people have made a scapegoat of a symptom and want to latch onto it, despite the dubiousness of the assertion.

I believe that civics could be taught more effectively in schools, but it'd have to be taught very cautiously. Academic caution shouldn't be something our educational institutions fear, though. Not as a matter of policy anyway.

Quote :

"TGD: This study is just an inevitability of any market-based society. Rational ignorance -- the benefits someone would gain from learning this information is vastly outweighed by the costs in lost productivity for them to do so."

Could you elaborate on those benefits?

[Edited on September 27, 2006 at 11:06 AM. Reason : ...]

9/27/2006 10:47:11 AM

Quote :

" government, American history, economics and international affairs, and came up with 60 themes. We then had classroom faculty come up with 60 questions that covered those specific areas that every citizen should know something about, like the thinking of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King and what part of the century the American Revolution and Civil War were fought."

The problem is, these things aren't taught in school. In my schools american history consisted of studying indians, studying colonies, and studying the revolutionary and civil wars. In fact, if you didn't know any better, you would have thought that american history ended at about 1920. There's whole swaths of information that just don't get covered. A good course on the constitution and constitutional law would help. Hell the best course I ever took on american history was one where the teacher taught most of his classes by reenacting supreme court cases. You learn quite a bit about american history and mindset by looking at supreme court cases.

9/27/2006 11:04:21 AM

Quote :

"1337 b4k4: In fact, if you didn't know any better, you would have thought that american history ended at about 1920."

Nail -> Head.

9/27/2006 11:07:10 AM

Why the hell would college graduates need to know about history? It's useless. You go to college to learn a useful trade. The only useful trade for history is teaching someone else history.

9/27/2006 11:09:16 AM

Not if informed progress is the aim of your academic institutions.

9/27/2006 11:15:28 AM

Quote :

"The problem is, these things aren't taught in school. In my schools american history consisted of studying indians, studying colonies, and studying the revolutionary and civil wars. In fact, if you didn't know any better, you would have thought that american history ended at about 1920."

That's no longer the case. I teach Civics and U.S. History-- Civics covers the colonies to the Revolution, U.S. History starts in the Federalist Period and goes all the way to teh War on Terror.

In fact, our 1st Quarter ended yesterday, and I just finished the Civil War and will be done with Reconstruction by the middle of next week.

9/27/2006 11:17:34 AM

^ When did that change?

9/27/2006 11:20:13 AM

Erm... two years ago I think?

The Civics part makes sense. The Revolution is a perfect intro to how our government was formed, since our time under British rule had such a huge impact on our principles of government.

Starting U.S. History in the Federalist Period... not so much. I have to spend a couple days on 1492-1789.

9/27/2006 11:24:47 AM

WHOA. Two days studying 297 years of history! Hopefully nothing important or relevant to the present happened during that time.

9/27/2006 11:26:18 AM

Quote :

"Kinda makes you wonder if immigration's really to blame for America's slippage in global competitiveness. I'd wager that once again people have made a scapegoat of a symptom and want to latch onto it, despite the dubiousness of the assertion."

I agree with you there though I'd rather not respawn the same arguments over immigration on this thread.

Quote :

"Why the hell would college graduates need to know about history? It's useless. You go to college to learn a useful trade. The only useful trade for history is teaching someone else history."

Quote :

"Not if informed progress is the aim of your academic institutions."

Personally, I think that Civics and American History should be primarily the responsibility of the high school level since it is far more universal among the American population than the college experience.

Though I wonder how much tolerance should be given for fading civics knowledge over the lifetime of an individual. Afterall, unless you go into a government-related position, the nuances of the American government and large swaths of our nation's history are bound to fade even if you do keep up regularly with national news. Even if we can delay the decay of learning in college through reinforcement, most of it will probably fade within a decade.

Heck, I consider myself somewhat politically savvy, but having not done any real political science work outside of reading newspapers in over five years, details on such "basic" things like how bills become law are already starting to go fuzzy.

I would hate to see the results of this same exam given to college graduates twenty years on...

9/27/2006 11:46:35 AM

The question begged by that is why do we have such stringent academic requirements for foreigners who wish to become citizens, but not for natural-born citizens who feel the freedoms protected by their government are a birthright and do not have to be earned?

9/27/2006 11:50:04 AM

MANIFEST DESTINY

9/27/2006 11:55:14 AM

MISSOURI COMPROMISE

9/27/2006 12:02:07 PM

I'm not bullshitting with my question, either. It may understandably seem that way to some readers, but that's another fundamental I want to understand how people rationalize.

9/27/2006 12:33:27 PM

you a fan of completely open borders/citizenship then gamecat?

9/27/2006 12:45:13 PM

^^ The simplest answer is probably that immigrants aren't indoctrinated by the american system. It sounds bad I know, but I think the idea is that by growing up and living in america you get a good chunk of "the american way™" burned into you. Immigrants don't get that, so we make them know alot about "the american way™" instead.

9/27/2006 12:50:49 PM

Civics and personal finance need much, much more attention in basic education.

9/27/2006 1:00:51 PM

I'm not a fan necessarily of completely open borders. Sounds like quite an invitation to terrorism to me.

But I'm a far bigger fan of transparency in public policy. At some level, we need to understand why our nation's current immigrations standards are what they are. A good start would be to assess what we believe today about the phrase expressed within our nation's founding documents by the phrase all men. When asked to evaluate the philosophy expressed within the Constitution, free from the political biases imposed upon us, I'd wager it'd be a sobering mental exercise at least.

I don't really have to think it'd lead to any one particular conclusion to think so either.

^ 100% agree on both counts.

[Edited on September 27, 2006 at 1:07 PM. Reason : ...]

9/27/2006 1:07:08 PM

I vote to replace my required art courses with history and economics

[Edited on September 27, 2006 at 1:14 PM. Reason : .]

9/27/2006 1:13:57 PM

No you don't. You vote for salesmen in expensive suits who are good at repeating the same things over and over again without asking meaningful questions.

[Edited on September 27, 2006 at 1:43 PM. Reason : ...]

9/27/2006 1:39:13 PM

Quote :

"Rational ignorance -- the benefits someone would gain from learning this information is vastly outweighed by the costs in lost productivity for them to do so."

I doubt it's vastly outweighed. I mean, you could probably learn this shit in the time it takes to watch a movie.

9/27/2006 4:10:43 PM

Totally agreed.

Or is it the Republican who's now convinced that people are stupid or lazy, should care about their futures or shouldn't, or any other number of odd dichotomies. I wonder what makes anyone believe that such a thing as rational ignorance isn't (or shouldn't be) labeled by others as a problem.

[Edited on September 27, 2006 at 4:24 PM. Reason : ...]

9/27/2006 4:13:03 PM

I that TGD made a good point, though. There's little incentive for folks to learn about civics and U.S. history.

Why not just watch a movie instead?

Life isn't that bad, and you have barely any influence on government.

9/27/2006 4:21:57 PM

That's also true. But unlike a certain number of communist and facsist historical entities, we have the capacity to increase and decrease that influence. It's called Freedom. And they don't let people post that word in China. Our country chooses to claim Freedom as it's sticking point in this portion of history.

Anyone who's ever been anywhere within politics, business, government, or academia knows or must admits on some level that Freedom resembles more of a Controlled Anarchy than absolute nihilistic abandonement of ethical principle.

[Edited on September 27, 2006 at 4:31 PM. Reason : ...]

9/27/2006 4:25:58 PM

Quote :

"I wonder what makes anyone believe that such a thing as rational ignorance isn't (or shouldn't be) labeled by others as a problem."

Surely you can't argue that rational ignorance is always a problem. I mean, I certainly have no idea how power stations really produce the power that lights my home. I don't need to know that.

You might could argue, as some have already done, that rational ignorance is, in fact, irrational when it comes to civics because one must know it in order to defend their beloved freedoms. I would argue that very little of it REALLY matters. Sure, the three branches and checks and balances matter, but what difference does it really make to the average citizen to know the inner-workings of the Electoral College? They still should vote for the president based on who they think should do the job. The same could be said for the date of major battles, the order of the presidents, the number of justices on the supreme court, etc.

You're right in that most of it can be learned in an afternoon, but what exactly is important for people to know? Does the number of representatives from each state matter? What makes the grade as "necessary" knowledge? Even knowing the bill of rights isn't that important. If you feel something is terrible, you can reference the bill of rights online to see if there is something you can do about it. You shouldn't have to memorize them.

9/27/2006 4:32:22 PM

No, I wouldn't argue that. I avoid using the word "always" in my vocabulary because it creates such false distinctions. I've found, like most scientists have, that including words like "always" in the language of a personal theory is an excellent way to waste your time theorizing without coming up with rational conclusions based on repeateable, empirical testing.

The important things for them to know involve the accurate facts about the factors and forces that govern their world.

[Edited on September 27, 2006 at 4:35 PM. Reason : ...]

9/27/2006 4:34:39 PM

Well, I would prefer you be more specific than that, although I realize a list of these things is tedious and wouldn't really add much to the debate.

Tell me a few accurate facts about the way my country is governed that would be important to know without referencing a book. To me, it's like the periodic table. It is important to know it, in general, but in all actuality, you will never need to use it when you wouldn't be able to reference it.

9/27/2006 4:38:45 PM

Sure.

Three major types of supra-organizational powerful actors at work:

1) Governments
2) Corporations
3) Religious Institutions

Accurate facts about these actors:

1) Neither operates fully independently of the other. Or even within the limitations of each category.

2) Governments and corporations are both entities designed from the beginning to be permanent expressions of the power of a collection of individuals.

3) Both governments and corporations wield vastly more political, military, economic, and diplomatic resources than any individual or small group of individuals.

[Edited on September 27, 2006 at 4:52 PM. Reason : ...]

9/27/2006 4:51:35 PM

Dates, names, etc...I could care less. General themes and basic history are important though. And a practical, solid understanding of how our government works is important as well. I mean, we see the ignorance in politicians today. "Well, I think we should do this. I wanna do this." Hey, dumbass, you can't do that...it doesn't work that way...it's never worked that way and with good reason...

I personally have very little idea how the government actually works. Who reports to who, what needs to be done to do what, etc...

As far as history goes, I learn something new every day, whether it be a different account or new context. Context is something I totally missed out on, and each time I get a little, I'm like, "Ohhhh, it makes so much more sense now!" I definitely learned about the history of the general USA but not much at all about the history of the American government.

Broader implications of this study...power could become even more isolated, we may experience even more disinterest in the political process, meh...

Quote :

"TGD:The fact most Universities now focus on job training instead of actual education is a symptom of that, not a cause."

Right on. Colleges aren't packed with upper-class kids who have the luxury to sit around and smoke pipes while discussing Locke and Rousseau...kids today wanna get in and get out, get a good job, make some money, and buy an Escalade.

Personal note: poor education or even false education is very disempowering. I mean, take the "founding fathers"...in schools across the nation, they're built up to be Gods and not much is taught about them. You're just supposed to know that they rock, and this leaves the students feeling, perhaps unconsciously, disempowered (1. for not knowing much about them, 2. for the seeming distance between them and the "heroes"). There has been a movement away from portraying certain historical figures as the ultimate history makers, but that's supposed to be added to with discussion about how regular citizens used their powers to change history...anyway...

9/27/2006 4:58:01 PM

Quote :

"in schools across the nation, they're built up to be Gods and not much is taught about them. You're just supposed to know that they rock, and this leaves the students feeling, perhaps unconsciously, disempowered (1. for not knowing much about them, 2. for the seeming distance between them and the "heroes")."

That's why kids should read this book:

9/27/2006 5:08:32 PM

The problem with what I'm being told to teach is the sheer quanitity of crap they expect kids to know.

Instead of jumping into major events and exploring primary resources, significance, and relevance, I have to lecture and cover every silly minutiae of US history.

Instead of the students graduating with a firm grasp for the major events and a decent respect for history, they leave with a bunch of forgettable facts and a distaste for history. I'm able to give the kids some contact with the actual process of history, but it's not nearly as frequent as it should be (every day).

To give you an idea of the amount of terms the kids are expected to know, here's the NC pacing guide:

http://www.ncpublicschools.org/docs/curriculum/socialstudies/secondary/honorsushistory.pdf

The Terms begin on p.21, and end on p.177

9/27/2006 6:49:51 PM

I read the OP but skipped most of the rest because it looked at quick glance to basically skip this point...

Is the purpose of college to prepare/educate students about being a good citizen or to give them a basic set of skills to make more money than they would if they didn't attend college?

I'd argue while it shoud be a combination of the both, it seems to be mostly the latter.

I get the feeling that as the years pass, the academic institution is getting further away from its pure purpose (the pursuit and dissipation of knoweldge) and more towards the pursuit of making money.

9/27/2006 8:22:00 PM

It's definitely more of the former for me. I wish I could say otherwise.

9/27/2006 8:28:19 PM

Quote :

"Is the purpose of college to prepare/educate students about being a good citizen or to give them a basic set of skills to make more money than they would if they didn't attend college? I'd argue while it shoud be a combination of the both, it seems to be mostly the latter. I get the feeling that as the years pass, the academic institution is getting further away from its pure purpose (the pursuit and dissipation of knoweldge) and more towards the pursuit of making money."

College used to be about seeking out and obtaining knowledge, but that was when it was something exclusive to the upper class. Technology and industry developed, and we needed a work force trained beyond just high school, and the jobs that didn't require more than high school became less and less desirable...so the middle and lower classes began attending college, and many of them can't afford to waste their time/money learning stuff that isn't going to directly affect their paychecks.

[Edited on September 27, 2006 at 8:48 PM. Reason : sss]

9/27/2006 8:41:04 PM

They still have to learn stuff they isn't going get them more cheese.

Just not history and civics, it seems.

9/27/2006 8:48:41 PM

Quote :

"Sayer: Is the purpose of college to prepare/educate students about being a good citizen or to give them a basic set of skills to make more money than they would if they didn't attend college? I'd argue while it shoud be a combination of the both, it seems to be mostly the latter. I get the feeling that as the years pass, the academic institution is getting further away from its pure purpose (the pursuit and dissipation of knoweldge) and more towards the pursuit of making money."

Quote :

"GoldenViper: They still have to learn stuff they isn't going get them more cheese. Just not history and civics, it seems."

Exactly. I'm gaining the impression that a reasonably informed holistic understanding of the accurately-depicted powers and forces at play in the world around us (locally, globally, it doesn't matter) taking into account psychological, philo-logical, commercial, and sociological phenomenon are not worth getting cheese in most people's eyes for some reason.

Probably because it requires some derivation of "thinking too much" or some other unfortunate characterization.

What is it with people's predilections for avoiding serious speculation once it's pretty fucking clear that everyone on Earth is doing it on an easily understandable level?

9/27/2006 8:55:22 PM

Quote :

"GoldenViper: They still have to learn stuff they isn't going get them more cheese. Just not history and civics, it seems."

Well, some educators believe it's more important for students to know the difference between Buddhism, Hinduism, and Sikhism than to know the difference between the three branches of the federal government.

Short-sighted? Perhaps...

Quote :

"Gamecat: Exactly. I'm gaining the impression that a reasonably informed holistic understanding of the accurately-depicted powers and forces at play in the world around us (locally, globally, it doesn't matter) taking into account psychological, philo-logical, commercial, and sociological phenomenon are not worth getting cheese in most people's eyes for some reason."

STFU. Very few people would benefit economically from what you just described. Where is this "cheese" that you speak of?

Quote :

"Gamecat: Probably because it requires some derivation of "thinking too much" or some other unfortunate characterization."

Yeah, that's it because specializing is so much easier.

9/27/2006 9:41:33 PM

Did I say something wrong?

9/28/2006 9:02:33 PM

Quote :

"SourPatchin: Very few people would benefit economically from what you just described. Where is this "cheese" that you speak of?"

Have you noted how the answer your question depends on the economic currency?

And yes, specializing is a metrick fuckton easier.

[Edited on September 28, 2006 at 9:05 PM. Reason : ...]

9/28/2006 9:04:17 PM