Posted on 09/13/2007 7:49:59 AM PDT by SirLinksalot
Seniors at UC Berkeley, the nation's premier public university, got an F in their basic knowledge of American history, government and politics in a new national survey, and students at Stanford University didn't do much better, getting a D.
Out of 50 schools surveyed, Cal ranked 49th and Stanford 31st in how well they are increasing student knowledge about American history and civics between the freshman and senior years. And they're not alone among major universities in being fitted for a civics dunce cap. Other poor performers in the study were Yale, Duke, Brown and Cornell universities. Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore was the tail-ender behind Cal, ranking 50th. The No. 1 ranking went to unpretentious Rhodes College in Memphis. Small but competitive regional private colleges rounded up the top 5 including Calvin College, Grove City College and University of Colorado at Boulder.
The study was conducted by the University of Connecticut's department of public policy and the nonprofit education organization Intercollegiate Studies Institute. Researchers sampled 14,000 students at 50 schools, large and small.
The aim was to determine how well the colleges are teaching their students the basics of government, politics and history -- the bedrocks of good citizenship.
Beyond the rankings, the study found that across the board -- from elite universities to less-selective colleges -- the typical senior did poorly on the civics literacy exam, scoring below 70 percent. This would be a D or F on a basic test using a conventional grading scale.
That shows, the researchers said, that the students don't have -- and the universities generally aren't teaching -- the basic understanding of America's history and founding principles that they need to be good citizens.
It is a crisis, the report warns.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
The report is available at
www.americancivicliteracy.org.
Source: University of Connecticut
tests showed that the students had only one answer on all their civic questions..”Bush’s fault!”..
There is no need to even explain these results. They are self evident.
Spring Arbor is #6? Woot!
My husband teaches as an adjunct professor for SAU. He’s - believe it or not - a conservative Christian social worker. The college has been expanding and growing at a very fast rate. I’m glad to see they’re doing it the right way!
Forget my question. I found out myself. Here’s what Wikipedia says about the school :
“Spring Arbor University, located in Spring Arbor, Michigan, United States is an evangelical Protestant university affiliated with the Free Methodist Church, with professional and graduate studies for about 3,700 students. As of the 2007-08 school year, there were 1,913 undergraduates, 1,091 graduate and 697 off-campus degree completion students. The university employs approximately 100 full-time faculty. Spring Arbor University has extension sites in Alpena, Battle Creek, Bay City, Flint, Gaylord, Grand Rapids, Jackson, Kalamazoo, Lansing, Metro-Detroit, Petoskey, Traverse City, Troy, and Metro-Toledo, Ohio.
The university is currently under the presidency of Gayle Beebe, a Quaker. Beebe has previously served in the administration of several Christian institutions. The university offers over 40 program majors and is recognized for its strong Liberal Arts curriculum and Christian atmosphere. Most students are from various Protestant denominations, over 42 denominations are represented on the campus. Around 86% of students are from Michigan, 13% are from 22 other states and 1% are international.”
It’s really ironic with all the anti-religious bias going on in our schools, that the schools that are teaching students HOW TO BE A GOOD AMERICAN by actually teaching them civics are CHRISTIAN COLLEGES. Notice how many Christian Colleges are ranked at the top.
Spring Arbor University
Spring Arbor, MI
SAU is a Free Methodist college. Remember the story of Julie Nemechec, the alleged Baptist minister who taught there who started wearing skirts and pearls and demanded to be accepted as a woman? The University refused to let him teach and took a pounding for it. They settled, but Nemechec is no longer in front of a classroom, which was the most important thing.
Heh, sorry, I should’ve gone down one more post. ;-)
This is a shock?
These universities in particular revel in casting aspersions on American history, much less the “culture” in engendered that they still despise.
Now, the question is -
were they tested on the PC version of American Gov’t, History, and Politics,
or on the historical truth?
***tests showed that the students had only one answer on all their civic questions..”Bush’s fault!”..***
Whoa!? You mean that’s not a correct answer?? ;^)
Have you read the “Politically Incorrect Guide to American History”?
It’s a case of “you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad.”
Best part of the article (on the Intercollegiate Studies Institute’s site, not the SFC site) was that the bottom 16 schools actually exhibited negative learning - the Seniors knew less about civics than the Freshmen! That would be these schools:
35 University of Michigan -0.1
36 Ithaca College -0.2
37 University of Chicago -0.3
38 Massachusetts Institute of Technology -0.4
39 Williams College -0.7
40 University of Florida -0.8
41 Wofford College -0.9
42 University of Virginia -1.1
43 Georgetown University -1.2
44 Yale University -1.5
45 State University of West Georgia -2.0
46 Duke University -2.3
47 Brown University -2.7
48 Cornell University -3.3
49 University of California, Berkeley -5.6
50 Johns Hopkins University -7.3
At Stanford, freshmen scored an average of 62.2 percent, and seniors scored an average of 63.1 percent. The difference between the freshmen and seniors was minimal, which the study's authors say shows they are not being taught the content during college. In comparison, at Rhodes College, the freshman average was 50.6 percent and the senior average 62.2 percent. Even though the Rhodes seniors scored lower than Stanford's, the researchers concluded Rhodes was doing a better job because of the percentage of improvement shown.
The top ranked school still has a 62.2, or D- average on this test. If you look at some of the questions you would shock at how easy they are, but I blame the public schools as well as colleges and universities.
So, it seems that those going to Stanford already KNEW more than Rhodes but after 4 years, Rhodes Seniors caught up with Stanford...
What can we learn here ?
A not so knowledgable kid who enters Rhodes ends up just as good as a Stanford Freshman, while a Stanford adds little to nothing to a freshman’s knowledge... at least that’s how it’s looking like to me.
Oh crap...now I can't get the Schoolhouse Rock song "I'm Just a Bill" out of my head...
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