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Graduates Know Even Less About History (Take The Quiz!)
Madison.com ^ | September 19, 2007 | Anita Weier

Posted on 09/19/2007 5:48:59 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin

The University of Wisconsin-Madison did relatively well in a 50-college test of how much students learned about history and economics during four years of college, but students in Wisconsin and nationally knew little when they came in and not much more when they left. No college did better than a D-plus on the Civic Literacy Test released Tuesday by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, a nonpartisan conservative educational organization that stresses the values of a free society.

The national average was F.

The test of 14,000 randomly selected students revealed that some of the most expensive Ivy League universities, with the highest-paid presidents and largest government subsidies, were the worst-performing, the institute found.

Overall, the nation's freshmen and seniors scored slightly more than 50 percent on the 60-question exam. The institute said that a kindergartner would have scored about 20 percent correct just by guessing.

The study tested freshmen and seniors at the colleges and universities, in order to determine how much history they learned there. The researchers did not test the same students in freshmen and senior years, but those who were freshmen and seniors in the same year.

Eastern Connecticut State University ranked first, by adding 9.65 percentage points to the score from freshman to senior year. Marian College, a private school in Fond du Lac, was second, with a 9.44 percentage point gain, while the University of Wisconsin-Madison ranked 15th, gaining 6.3 percentage points.

UW-Madison and Marian College were the only Wisconsin schools tested.

Living in the present

Asked about the exercise, David McDonald, chairman of the History Department at UW-Madison, termed the test interesting but questioned the institute's conclusions.

Students generally learn basic history in high school, he said, adding that they often study historical details in order to pass college entry exams, but then go on to pursue other knowledge at the college level.

"Colleges reflect general attitudes and patterns in society. This is not a historically oriented society. We look at quarterly reports instead of long trends. There is a lot of emphasis on living in the present, and not a great deal of understanding of larger historical patterns," said McDonald, who grew up in Canada but got just three wrong on the American history exam.

"There is a mythical past in which everyone knew this material. If you are from a well-to-do household with well-educated parents, you will do well on this and other academic areas. Students should probably know the sequence of events in the Civil War. But is it more important for Americans to know that John Locke was a major influence on the Declaration of Independence or that they have a strong understanding of their rights and be willing to act on them?"

Students at several expensive universities, including Yale, Cornell, Princeton and Duke, actually lost ground during four years of college education.

But the median score of students at those prestigious universities was higher than most colleges where students gained more knowledge during their college career.

For instance, freshman at Yale got 68.94 percent of the answers right and those at Cornell got 61.9 percent correct, though seniors did worse in both cases.

UW-Madison freshmen scored 51.57 percent correct and seniors got 57.87 percent. At Marian College, freshmen scored just 33.66 percent and seniors 43.10 percent.

Gorbachev who?

The test consisted of 60 multiple-choice questions about America's history, government, international relations and economics. The test, the answers and the results at the various colleges can be found online at http://www.americancivicliteracy.org

Typical questions included: "The Constitution of the United States established what form of government?" and "Which wall was President Reagan referring to when he said, 'Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall'?" The test also included some questions on the U.S. economy and political philosophy.

"The evidence from our ongoing research shows that colleges, especially the most expensive and elite schools, are failing to advance students' knowledge of America's history, government and free market economics and consequently not preparing their students to be informed and engaged citizens," said Josiah Bunting III, chairman of ISI's National Civic Literacy Board.

"The time has come for higher education's key decision-makers -- state legislators, trustees, donors, alumni, faculty, students' parents -- to hold the nation's colleges and their presidents accountable for teaching their students America's history and institutions."

McDonald said nationwide, students who took the test did well on questions regarding Abraham Lincoln, the New Deal and Brown vs. Board of Education, and did worst on the Revolutionary War, Plato and the requirement for a just war, a question that he said was strangely phrased.

Students who study history in college learn that events are the results of several levels of cause, and that people are products of their times, McDonald said.

"They learn that evidence must be scrutinized and viewed with skepticism," he said. "Our job is to produce people who can do critical thinking, who are aware that they hold certain views and understand why."


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; US: Wisconsin
KEYWORDS: academia; amiabledunces; civicstest; competency; educatedmorons; highereducation; hillsdale; historyeducation; illiteracy; madisonwi
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To: Harrius Magnus

Now you know why I dropped out...


281 posted on 09/20/2007 10:18:12 PM PDT by B-Chan (Catholic. Monarchist. Texan. Any questions?)
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To: zeugma

Got 85% correct. The economics questions messed me up. I’m a history major.

That’s no excuse, however.


282 posted on 09/21/2007 5:55:28 AM PDT by Peter W. Kessler (Dirt is for racing... asphalt is for getting there.)
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To: cynwoody
Nothing of importance. A combination of laziness and not liking the appearance of buttons in 2.0. I do have 2.0 on one of my other machines, just not the one I usually use. I just mentioned the version in case anyone else having trouble with the site was ill on 1.5.

 

 Cool.  Browsers are a lot about personal preferences. I use the Noia Extreme skin, so I don't really worry much aboout the default appearance of FF or Thunderbird. Once they stop releasing patches for the 1.5 line, I'd recommend  upgrading though.
 

283 posted on 09/21/2007 6:55:07 AM PDT by zeugma (Ubuntu - Linux for human beings)
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To: Diana in Wisconsin

You answered 57 out of 60 correctly — 95.00 %


284 posted on 09/21/2007 7:15:57 AM PDT by Greg F (Duncan Hunter is a good man.)
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To: Burma Jones

I got 59 out of 60. Should’ve been 60 — fought with myself and lost on the one I missed.
__________________

That’s impressive. I got 57 out of the 60. I missed the final battle of the Revolutionary War (Yorktown), when Jamestown was founded, and that the Monroe Doctrine discouraged the formation of more western colonies in the Americas (I should have got the Monroe Doctrine one since I knew the correct answer was correct . . . but thought that it might have included the term Manifest Destiny). The other two I was just flat wrong about.

Anyway congrats on 59 out of 60. Which one did you miss?


285 posted on 09/21/2007 7:21:03 AM PDT by Greg F (Duncan Hunter is a good man.)
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To: Enchante

i got 91.67; back to school i guess


286 posted on 09/21/2007 7:54:39 AM PDT by OldCorps
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To: Greg F

You weren’t asking me but I have a funny story about the only question I missed. I also got 59/60 and the only one I missed I actually knew the answer to but thought it was a trick question and tried to think as I thought the test-maker was thinking rather than just answering the question..... it was the one about highest govt. spending in the past 20 years, and I knew it was Social Security, but I answered military because I figured the correct answer was so obvious that the test-makers were trying to trick people with some provision about Social Security coming from a different type of budget, etc. I wasn’t sure of any details about how Social Security is actually listed in the federal budgets so I figured we were being set up for a trick answer. Ah, well, next time just answer the question as it appears!


287 posted on 09/21/2007 8:27:22 AM PDT by Enchante (Reid and Pelosi Defeatocrats: Surrender Now - Peace for Our Time!!)
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To: Enchante

It’s hard to get 100% when you haven’t been in class with the writer of the test to know their biases and pet factoids . . .


288 posted on 09/21/2007 8:30:16 AM PDT by Greg F (Duncan Hunter is a good man.)
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To: Diana in Wisconsin
Does anyone believe these consequences aren’t the result of a vast left wing conspiracy? Keep them dumb and they’ll vote dem.
289 posted on 09/21/2007 8:33:27 AM PDT by mimaw
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To: zeugma
"I'd really like to see this administered fairly to all regular FRreepers and all regular DU'ers or Kosacs"

DUers and KOSfreaks would average maybe 20% but they'd manage to turn it into a series of rants against "cultural bias" of the test and "Bush's fault" diatribes about the educational system and "neocon conspiracies" to elevate teaching of boring facts over useful leftist propaganda.

There has been quite an onslaught against teaching key FACTS of history, geography, politics, and economics..... this soft-headed "progressive" attitude of making it all up as you go has been growing in power over the past 40+ years (actually it goes back to Dewey and his fellow self-styled "progressive" educators). I took one intro ed course as an undergrad, when I still thought it conceivable that I might want to teach history in a secondary school, and I'll never forget the prof's comment when she returned my "model lesson plan" for a final project in the course. Basically, we'd had to write up weekly lesson plans for a semester course in any subject. She liked my plan and gave it an 'A' but basically said (not quite so bluntly) that it would have to be "dumbed down" a lot before it could actually be used. That helped me decide not to pursue a h.s. teaching career!
290 posted on 09/21/2007 8:36:28 AM PDT by Enchante (Reid and Pelosi Defeatocrats: Surrender Now - Peace for Our Time!!)
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To: SirLinksalot
"Dautrich said freshmen there scored so high that they “had less room to move up.”"

I don't think he should be too proud of graduating students who average 67.26% on such a test. It's great that Grove City College requires more study of the "history of civilization" than other colleges, but it looks like they don't require too much study of AMERICAN civilization.
291 posted on 09/21/2007 8:50:28 AM PDT by Enchante (Reid and Pelosi Defeatocrats: Surrender Now - Peace for Our Time!!)
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To: Diana in Wisconsin

88.33..........What’s that these days-—a B?


292 posted on 09/21/2007 8:56:05 AM PDT by litehaus (A memory tooooo long)
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To: Enchante
That's what I've been saying all along. If Harvard and Grove City College, with their less than satisfactory scores, are considered the best of the lot, this country is graduating a lot of students with poor knowledge of civics.

This isn't news to be happy about. But they're SPINNING it that way. Sort of saying, hey -- we failed the test, but look we did much better than the others who failed.
293 posted on 09/21/2007 8:58:54 AM PDT by SirLinksalot
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To: Diana in Wisconsin

Just took the quiz and got a 52.

I was stoked, cause I haven’t looked at most of that stuff in many years! The sad thing is that these college students are right in the thick of all this learning and they are doing worse.

Of course I’m going to break my arm patting myself on the back. I only took two college courses in my life (econ. and pre-calc.) and that was over 10 years ago. 8^)

I’m sending the quiz to my wife and brother.


294 posted on 09/21/2007 9:42:37 AM PDT by ScubieNuc
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To: Diana in Wisconsin
Not too bad ....

You answered 53 out of 60 correctly — 88.33 %

295 posted on 09/21/2007 9:55:39 AM PDT by Centurion2000 (“Jesus Saves. Moses Delivers. Cthulu Reposesses...")
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To: Greg F

GregF: I missed the one about Plato’s Republic, which I should have gotten, but I shouldn’t complain because there were a couple I had to guess on.


296 posted on 09/22/2007 9:16:24 AM PDT by Burma Jones
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To: Diana in Wisconsin

I surprised myself and got 80 percent right. It’s been a LONG time since I was in school. It would seem they aren’t teaching this nowadays anyway.


297 posted on 09/23/2007 4:38:23 AM PDT by MEG33 (GOD BLESS OUR ARMED FORCES)
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To: Diana in Wisconsin

I only scored 74%. :(


298 posted on 09/23/2007 5:14:39 AM PDT by EmilyGeiger
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To: EmilyGeiger
I only scored 74%. :(

Me too, but I felt like I did much better. And we DID beat Harvard seniors.

299 posted on 09/23/2007 5:53:42 AM PDT by DouglasKC
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