Posted on 01/05/2003 4:59:58 PM PST by steplock
Study Reveals Five Decades of 'Dumbing Down' in American Education
By Jim Brown and Jody Brown
AgapePress - January 3, 2003
A new poll finds that American college seniors today are just slightly more knowledgeable than high-school graduates of half a century ago.
The Zogby study was commissioned by the National Association of Scholars (NAS), one of the nation's foremost advocates of reform in higher education.
The study reveals that current college seniors did better than 1950 high-school grads on questions relating to literature, music and, to some extent, science. On questions relating to geography, both averaged about the same. But today's college seniors did significantly worse on history questions.
Read Zogby Report: Today's College Students and Yesteryear's High School Grads[PDF]
NAS president Stephen Balch says overall, the general knowledge of 1950 high-school graduates is nearly identical to that of 2002 college seniors.
"We are seeing here the result of about 50 years of 'dumbing down,' in which students are less and less asked to acquire a broad-based factual knowledge and instead are told that the important thing is not their specific understandings about the world, but rather they can think," he explains.
Balch says it is apparent that many educators today are not teaching the basics, but instead are involved in all sorts of esoteric specializations.
"One of the phenomena we've seen, and in part it's been due to 'progressive' education -- what John Dewey and his colleagues launched back at the beginning of the twentieth century -- is a retreat from the idea that people should learn specific facts," Balch says. "And as far as it's been taken, [it has been] quite damaging. There's also ... been a deterioration in the quality of the people who teach [in] our schools."
Balch says when education is extended over a longer period, there is the risk of diluting its content and quality. And according to Balch, to some significant extent, that has happened.
In summarizing its findings, the Zogby study states: "By almost every measure of cultural knowledge in our survey, today's college seniors appear to rank far below the college graduates of mid-century." The survey included questions such as: "What composer wrote the Messiah?" and "In what country was the Battle of Waterloo fought?"
Note: Read the book that foretold it all:
The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America: A Chronological Paper Trail
Author : Charlotte Thompson Iserbyt
My UPI article, "Ignorance in America," picked up that point and added fifty more years, going back to McGuffey's Reader at the turn of the century. That was a week ago, and also up on FR.
So, these people are right in their article, but they are also way behind the curve.
Congressman Billybob
Click for latest column on UPI, "Incision Decision in the Senate" (Now up on UPI wire, and FR.)
As the politician formerly known as Al Gore has said, my book, "to Restore Trust in America"
Right. Two causes. One is emphasis in schools on group projects rather than memorization plus individual achievement. The other cause should be obvious if I point out one of the few wrong answers my 10 year old boy just gave when I went over some of the questions with him. On the question about who first flew nonstop across the Atlantic, his answer was Amelia Earhart. When I explained the real story, he said that then surely Earhart was the first across the Pacific.
The most astonishing thing I find, that I try to weave into conversations with the young, is to mention Martin Luther. Nearly every one of them, thinks I am just calling "the Rev Dr" by his first and middle name, maybe to put him down, maybe because I am a racist.
You can get the blankest look even from Lutherans sometimes, if you ask who it was that made part of Germany Protestant, or who founded the Lutheran church. That last one really gets me.
Who is buried in Grant's tomb?
But when you compare college scores of 50 years ago with today's scores you will probably be using the courses taught 50 years ago and hoping to see if they're still taught; so you're comparing the scores of English and Philosophy majors mostly. Fifty years ago there was hardly any computer science being taught, very little microbiology or astrophysics or a bunch of other majors that are now very active in modern colleges but virtually unheard of fifty years ago.
President Grant AND his wife..........FRegards
Now Science=Recycling, History=Bad Europeans and Geography=Diversity. The commies run public education.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.