Posted on 02/14/2010 6:58:25 AM PST by Pinkbell
The Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) released its fourth annual national Civic Literacy report today called "The Shaping of the American Mind: The Diverging Influences of the College Degree & Civic Learning on American Beliefs." In past studies, ISI has broken new ground by demonstrating empirically the failures of colleges and universities to effectively teach their graduates the fundamentals of American history, government, foreign affairs, and economics.
On an individual level, less than 60% (sometimes far less) of college graduates can identify on a multiple-choice test the three branches of government; seminal passages from the Declaration of Independence and Gettysburg Address; basic events from the Revolutionary, Civil, and Vietnam Wars; and the primary features of our free enterprise system. Several of these questions are actually required knowledge for new American citizens, signifying their relevance to what we as a nation demand for informed citizenship.
On an institutional level, ISI discovered that at many of our most elite schools, like Yale, Princeton, Duke, and my alma mater Georgetown, not only did those surveyed fail to get above a “D,” seniors at these top schools did worse than freshmen on the same test, a phenomenon dubbed “negative learning”!
Conventional wisdom, along with the hard-earned savings of American families, has long supported the notion that “with more college comes more knowledge.” ISI’s research has punctured the validity of such simple claims, drawing back the curtain of academia’s Land of Oz to reveal the smoke and mirrors of a veritable vacuum of civic ignorance.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Great article. Many links
Loved it, thanks for posting
Yeah, I did the same thing. Also missed the number of later amendments added to the Constitution.
Also, have just learned that the original co-editor and publisher of that volume, W. David Stedman, has written a new 75-page book entitled, "The Destruction of the Great American Dream," which can be obtained at.
Only by citizen action, outside the traditional education system, may we spread a revival of the Founders' ideas, and, as Dr. Russell Kirk warned in 1987, the time may be short.
Having never attended a school of “higher learning”, I consider myself fortunate to have escaped being dumbed down by liberalism.
Some of us are NOT surprised to learn that more college means more liberals. As part of a big family, I’ve seen that college education closely correlates to far left liberal opinions. Therefore, the longer these kids spend at university, the longer it takes to deprogram them into decent citizens ( and useable employees).
We finally have scientific studies to back up these casual observations.
The university system is outmoding itself with an army of aging leftist professors armed with 30 year old “knowledge”. They ruin our kids, they couldn’t survive a week at a real job and they sneer at anyone without a post grad degree.
They’re not learning much I can tell you that. Most college kids have absolutely no idea when any of Americas wars were fought, began or ended and the reasons for them. I donate to an organization of WW2 veterans who are trying to have textbooks include the history of WW2 in the Pacific. It’s a daunting challenge and it’s heart-breaking to have to read the frustration of these veterans when they describe the blank stares of American school kids when they’re told of Pearl Harbor, the fall of Corregidor , the Bataan Death March and any of the battlefronts of the war in the Pacific, in fact anything to do with the Second World War.
They are learning if that’s what you call it how to be slaves and to be sacrifices of the dictator because that is surely what they will be.
I went and checked what the general requirements were at my alma mater, and they have changed in the years since I went:
English: Passing the English composition sequence and passing the proficiency exam (usually 2 semesters of English composition)
Literature (2 classes)
Math 2 classes
Science 2 classes plus their labs, then one other science (this is more than when I was an undergrad) One of the subjects has to be biology, then one in the physical sciences
2 humanities and arts, split between the arts and humanities
2 classes in social studies (history is just one of several choices)
at least 1 class in computer literacy (exact competency may vary according to major)
proof of oral competency in some course
Classes are 3 credit hour classes.
Not much room for learning anything much outside of your speciality area....College is becoming more and more a glorified trade school instead of a place where everybody got a basic data set plus their speciality classes....
You’re welcome. I saw the study being discussed on Fox this morning. I searched their website, and I came across this article. I think it’s a good study and good article.
I can’t blame them when they’ve been exposed to badly-written, politically correct textbooks and indoctrinated teachers. I blame the school system.
Interesting essay.
I aced it but I doubt that one out of one hundred recent college graduates can make seventy percent on it.
“.College is becoming more and more a glorified trade school instead of a place where everybody got a basic data set plus their speciality classes....”
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That it is for sure. I once made the charge on FR that college is no longer concerned with education but is a place for training and indoctrination and I was flamed to a crisp. I still stand by it though. I went to the Navy class “A” electronics school which at the time was said to cover everything which was required for a bachelor’s degree in electronics minus the electives. The entire course was covered in 38 weeks of full time work. That was training for my job, it had nothing to do with education.
Learning to make a living is training. Learning to make a good life and teach others to make a good life is education.
There is precious little education offered in our public schools and nearly none in colleges and universities.
Most recent college graduates that I have met would probably not even qualify to enter a public high school of the nineteen fifties, let alone graduate. It is frightening to realize that they all are allowed to vote if they wish to, most have only a very foggy notion of what they are voting for.
“Education” has been devalued along with the currency, it is now common for employers to set a firm requirement for a minimum of a four year undergraduate degree on a job of the sort that used to be filled by a high school graduate at best and in many cases would have been filled by a high school dropout fifty or sixty years ago.
Trust me, you don't want to know.
later
It was, not to mention all the back data. Course liberals will immediately attack it because it has them funny things they don’t like .. we call them facts.
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