They may not know who lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but they sure can tell you who lives in a pineapple under the sea!
James Joyner doesn’t quite buy this, and neither do I:
77% Oklahoma High School Students Can’t Name 1st President?
A recent survey of Oklahoma public high school students found that the overwhelming majority can’t answer even simple questions about U.S. government and history.
Here’s the questions and the percentage who got them right:
- What is the supreme law of the land? 28%
- What do we call the first ten amendments to the Constitution? 26%
- What are the two parts of the U.S. Congress? 27%
- How many justices are there on the Supreme Court? 10%
- Who wrote the Declaration of Independence? 14%
- What ocean is on the east coast of the United States? 61%
- What are the two major political parties in the United States? 43%
- We elect a U.S. senator for how many years? 11%
- Who was the first President of the United States? 23%
- Who is in charge of the executive branch? 29%
Sixty-one percent correctly answered the “ocean on the east coast” question, but only 23% correctly named the first president? Both are pretty basic bits of information that any grade schooler ought to know, but the first one offers more opportunity for a simple mistake.
That almost three times as many high schoolers answered it correctly than answered the First President question correctly – that strikes me as odd.
Joyner delved into the complete results, and quibbles:
The chief “wrong” answer on the “Who is in Charge of the Executive Branch” question was “the Governor,” which garnered 10%. That’s actually right, since the question doesn’t specify federal or state. Similarly, shouldn’t the 11% who answered that the two parties are Communist and Republican be scored correctly?
Hey, at least one of my kids would have answered that way, just for fun.
UPDATE - yeah, according to those complete results, 2% of kids answered question #1 with “The Monroe Doctrine.” Four percent answered the second question that way.
They can’t identify the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, but they can come up with the Monroe Doctrine?
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I’ve seen the dumbing down of school children for years. I took statements from at least two generations as a police detective and had to walk them through spelling and grammar. Some were so illiterate after a high school education my wife and I decided to home school our kids. I told my wife if I put my brilliant daughter into public school I might as well put a crack pipe in her hand and a condom in her pocket.
She is now 14, talking Latin, logic, English Lit and geometry, along with volunteering at a nature center. She is planning a career in wildlife research- wolves in particular. She is an outstanding nature photographer.
My website http://www.truthandcommonsense.com has her link “kaley’s world”. Take a visit. She took all those photos with a 400.00 camera.