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Second Consecutive Civics Study (2007) Still Shows American College Students Failing Civic Literacy
Intercollegiate Studies Institute ^
| Sept 18, 2007
Posted on 09/18/2007 9:16:24 AM PDT by SirLinksalot
Americas Founders were convinced American freedom could survive only if each generation understood its founding principles and the sacrifices made to maintain it.
Failing Our Students, Failing America: Holding Colleges Accountable for Teaching Americas History and Institutions asks: Is American higher education doing its duty to prepare the next generation to maintain our legacy of liberty?
In fall 2005, researchers at the University of Connecticuts Department of Public Policy (UConnDPP), commissioned by the Intercollegiate Studies Institutes (ISI) National Civic Literacy Board, conducted a survey of some 14,000 freshmen and seniors at 50 colleges and universities. Students were asked 60 multiple-choice questions to measure their knowledge in four subject areas: Americas history, government, international relations, and market economy. The disappointing results were published by ISI in fall 2006 in The Coming Crisis in Citizenship: Higher Educations Failure to Teach Americas History and Institutions. Seniors, on average, failed all four subjects, and their overall average score was 53.2%.
This report follows up on The Coming Crisis in Citizenship. It is based on an analysis of the results of a second survey of some 14,000 freshmen and seniors at 50 colleges conducted by the research team at UConn in the fall of 2006. The results of this second survey corroborate and extend the results of the first. Seniors once again failed all four subjects.
The question now is: Will legislators, donors, trustees, parents, and other decision-makers hold colleges accountable?
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MAJOR FINDINGS Finding 1: College Seniors Failed a Basic Test on Americas History and Institutions. The average college senior knows astoundingly little about Americas history, government, international relations and market economy, earning an F on the American civic literacy exam with a score of 54.2%. Harvard seniors did best, but their overall average was 69.6%, a disappointing D+.
Finding 2: Colleges Stall Student Learning about America. From kindergarten through 12th grade, the average student gains 2.3 points per year in civic knowledge, almost twice the annual gain of the average college student. Students at some colleges did learn more per year than students in grade school, demonstrating that it is possible.
Eastern Connecticut State, one of 25 colleges randomly selected for this years survey, was the best performer, increasing civic knowledge by 9.65 points. Rhodes College, which increased civic knowledge by 7.42 points, was the best performer among 18 elite colleges surveyed both this year and last. Rhodes was also the best overall performer last year. Finding 3: Americas Most Prestigious Universities Performed the Worst. Colleges that do well in popular rankings typically do not do well in advancing civic knowledge.
Generally, the higher U.S. News & World Report ranks a college, the lower it ranks here in civic learning. At four colleges U.S. News ranked in its top 12 (Cornell, Yale, Duke, and Princeton), seniors scored lower than freshmen. These colleges are elite centers of negative learning. Cornell was the third-worst performer last year and the worst this year. Surveyed colleges ranked by Barrons imparted only about one-third the civic learning of colleges overlooked by Barrons. Finding 4: Inadequate College Curriculum Contributes to Failure. The number of history, political science, and economics courses a student takes helps determine, together with the quality of these courses, whether he acquires knowledge about America during college. Students generally gain one point of civic knowledge for each civics course taken. The average senior, however, has taken only four such courses.
Finding 5: Greater Learning about America Goes Hand-in-Hand with More Active Citizenship. Students who gain more civic knowledge during college are more likely to vote and engage in other civic activities than students who gain less.
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ADDITIONAL FINDINGS Additional Finding 1: Higher Quality Family Life Contributes to More Learning about America. College seniors whose families engaged in frequent conversations about current events and history, whose parents were married and living together, and who came from homes where English was the primary language all tended to learn more than students who lacked these advantages.
Additional Finding 2: American Colleges Under-Serve Minority Students. The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. eloquently argued that the civil rights movement was rooted in Americas founding documents as well as key historical events and decisions. American colleges today are not helping minorities learn this heritage. On average, minority seniors (Asian, Black, Hispanic, and Multiracial) answered less than half the exam questions correctly and made no significant overall gain in civic knowledge during college. Civic-knowledge gain among whites was six times greater.
Additional Finding 3: American Colleges Dont Teach Their Foreign Students about America. The average foreign student at an American college learns nothing about Americas history and institutions. Colleges thus squander an opportunity to foster greater understanding of Americas institutions in an increasingly hostile world.
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QUESTIONS OF ACCOUNTABILITY 1: Are Parents and Students Getting Their Moneys Worth from College Costs? The least-expensive colleges increase civic knowledge more than the most expensive.
2: Are Taxpayers and Legislators Getting Their Moneys Worth from College Subsidies? Colleges enjoying larger subsidies in the form of government-funded grants to students tend to increase civic knowledge less than colleges enjoying smaller such subsidies.
3: Are Alumni and Philanthropists Getting Their Moneys Worth from the Donations they make to Colleges? Some of the worst-performing colleges also have the largest, most rapidly growing endowments. These include Yale, Penn, Duke, Princeton, and Cornell.
4: Are College Trustees Getting Their Moneys Worth from College Presidents? Six of the 10 worst-performing colleges also ranked among the top 10 for the salaries they paid their presidents. These include Penn, Cornell, Yale, Princeton, Rutgers and Duke, which paid their presidents $500,000 or more.
5: Are Colleges Encouraging Students to Take Enough Courses about Americas History and Institutions and Then Assessing the Quality of These Courses? The average senior had completed only four courses in history, political science, and economics. But more courses taken did not always mean more knowledge gained. At eight colleges, each additional civics course a student completed, on average, decreased his civic knowledge
TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: civics; collge; literacy
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This relates to a
Previous Study Done at about the same time last year by the University of Connecticut.
To: SirLinksalot
Rankings
NO COLLEGE EARNED BETTER THAN A D+
Rank College Mean Senior Score (2006) (% correct)
1. Harvard University 69.56%
2. Grove City College (PA) 67.26
3. Washington & Lee University (VA) 66.98
4. Yale University 65.85
5. Brown University 65.64
6. University of Virginia 65.28
7. Wheaton College (IL) 64.98
8. University of Pennsylvania 63.49
9. Duke University 63.41
10. Bowdoin College (ME) 62.86
11. Princeton University 61.90
12. University of Notre Dame 61.25
13. Rhodes College (TN) 61.18
14. Smith College (MA) 60.07
15. University of Rochester (NY)* 59.32
16. University of Wisconsin 57.87
17. University of Georgia* 57.76
18. University of North Carolina 57.68
19. Cornell University 56.95
20. Carnegie Mellon University* 56.90
21. Calvin College (MI) 56.45
22. University of California-Berkeley 56.27
23. University of Washington 55.88
24. Concordia University (NE)* 55.28
25. University of Minnesota-Twin Cities* 53.50
26. University of Florida 53.40
27. Iowa State University* 52.69
28. University of Montana* 52.16
29. Gonzaga University (WA) 51.86
30. University of Michigan 51.00
31. Illinois State University* 50.93
32. Mississippi State University* 50.86
33. Rutgers University* 49.99
34. George Mason University (VA) 49.96
35. Murray State University (KY)* 49.75
36. University of Mississippi 49.32
37. IdahoState University* 48.15
38. University of Massachusetts-Amherst* 46.66
39. Mount Vernon Nazarene University (OH)* 44.60
40. Pfeiffer University (NC)* 44.30
41. St. Cloud State University (MN)* 44.26
42. Texas State University-San Marcos* 43.99
43. Georgia College and State University* 43.68
44. University of Southern Maine* 43.58
45. Marian College (WI)* 43.10
46. Texas A&M International University* 41.14
47. Eastern Connecticut State University* 40.99
48. St. Johns University (NY)* 39.82
49. Oakwood College (AL)* 34.69
50. St. Thomas University (FL)* 32.50
* Randomly selected school
To: SirLinksalot
By design, the left rules.
To: SirLinksalot
NO COLLEGE EARNED BETTER THAN A D+ Rank College Mean Senior Score (2006) (% correct)
Oh, well, THERE'S your problem. Temple wasn't on the survey list.
Owl_Eagle
If what I just wrote made you sad or angry,
it was probably just a joke.
4
posted on
09/18/2007 9:22:26 AM PDT
by
End Times Sentinel
(In Memory of my Dear Friend Henry Lee II)
To: SirLinksalot
College Test Scores and Rankings –
To: SirLinksalot
College Test Scores and Rankings –
To: SirLinksalot
To: So Cal Rocket
I got 93% (56 of 60), I got the wrong answers on the following :
Question #5
Question #7
Question #23
Question #27
I went to college in the 1980’s ( HINT: NOT AN IVY LEAGUE UNIVERSITY ).
To: SirLinksalot
I missed one more than you and received a 91.67. I got tripped up in the economics section. This was not an easy test. I must say that I would not have done as well when I graduated as the students of my alma mater did. Most of my knowledge has come from personal, post-graduate reading.
9
posted on
09/18/2007 10:32:38 AM PDT
by
twigs
To: So Cal Rocket
I would suspect that most FReepers would score a C+ or better. I think you underestimate Freepers.
55 out of 60 for me, and I'm no Ivy Leaguer either.
10
posted on
09/18/2007 10:36:13 AM PDT
by
seowulf
To: SirLinksalot
but their overall average was 69.6%, a disappointing D+. I seem to recall anything below 75 an F, 75-80 = D, 80-90 = C, 90-95 = B and 95-100 = A. When did this change?
To: SirLinksalot
Failing Our Students, Failing America: Holding Colleges Accountable for Teaching Americas History and Institutions asks: Is American higher education doing its duty to prepare the next generation to maintain our legacy of liberty?
Of course they aren't. And don't think for a second it's not by design. They aim to create a nation of helpless, dependent, mentally addled, hedonistic cretins that MUST have government running their lives just to survive.
12
posted on
09/18/2007 10:44:23 AM PDT
by
Antoninus
(Republicans who support Rudy owe Bill Clinton an apology.)
To: So Cal Rocket
Dag, I got 95%. And I know for a fact that there are folks much smarter than me here on FR.
Sadly, I learned much of what I know about the US history and government from one professor in highschool. Without him, you could probably knock off 20% from my score.
13
posted on
09/18/2007 11:02:49 AM PDT
by
Antoninus
(Republicans who support Rudy owe Bill Clinton an apology.)
To: SirLinksalot
I scored the same as you 56 out of 60
14
posted on
09/18/2007 11:06:44 AM PDT
by
Reagan79
(Ralph Stanley & The Clinch Mountain Boys)
To: twigs
Most of my knowledge has come from personal, post-graduate reading.
The implied question is this -- why were you not required to know them as a college Senior ?
To: eyedigress
I seem to recall anything below 75 an F, 75-80 = D, 80-90 = C, 90-95 = B and 95-100 = A. When did this change?
I was informed by a friend's son who goes to Cornell that getting a high grade in most liberal arts courses is a breeze. I suspect grade inflation is rampant in many of these schools.
To: SirLinksalot
First of all, there were basically no core requirements except two years of a foreign language, a writing course and 6 hours of a science or math. Then I transferred to the School of Architecture. I took no history at all. I entered college in 1972 and I attended UVA.
17
posted on
09/18/2007 11:11:18 AM PDT
by
twigs
To: SirLinksalot
18
posted on
09/18/2007 11:13:04 AM PDT
by
ProCivitas
(Duncan Hunter = Pro-Family + Fair Trade = Pro-America)
To: eyedigress
That was my scale of grades in high school. When I went to college in 1972, it changed to 90-100=A, 80-89=B, 70-79=C, and I’m a bit fuzzy on the rest. Either 65-69=D or 60-69=D. I don’t remember the F. Today, I believe it dips into the 50’s.
19
posted on
09/18/2007 11:15:21 AM PDT
by
twigs
To: SirLinksalot; Antoninus; So Cal Rocket; Reagan79; twigs; eyedigress; seowulf; jpsb; Wolfie; ...
I’d bet that Hillsdale College students in Michigan would have done markedly better than this bunch.
20
posted on
09/18/2007 11:22:07 AM PDT
by
ProCivitas
(Duncan Hunter = Pro-Family + Fair Trade = Pro-America)
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