Free Republic

For 11 years, Professor Duke Pesta gave quizzes to his students at the beginning of the school year to test their knowledge on basic facts about American history and Western culture. The most surprising result from his 11-year experiment? Students’ overwhelming belief that slavery began in the United States and was almost exclusively an American phenomenon, he said. “Most of my students could not tell me anything meaningful about slavery outside of America,” Pesta told The College Fix. “They are convinced that slavery was an American problem that more or less ended with the Civil War, and they are very...

This year, the most influential book you may never have read is celebrating a major birthday. The King James Version of the Bible was published 400 years ago. It's no longer the top-selling Bible, but in those four centuries, it has woven itself deeply into our speech and culture. Let's travel back to 1603: King James I, who had ruled Scotland, ascended to the throne of England. What he found was a country suspicious of the new king. "He was regarded as a foreigner," says Gordon Campbell, a historian at the University of Leicester in England. "He spoke with a...

I Remember By Fred Thompson Friday, May 25, 2007 I remember when I was a kid; one thing was clear to me. The more I learned about the rest of the world, the luckier I felt just having been born in America. The more I learned about America, the more I appreciated what those who came before us built; and how exceptional they were. Not that there aren't other great places to live, but America is unique. It's not just that we are the freest and most prosperous country the world has ever seen. America has also freed more people...

<p>Jordan and Jessica Whall are two years apart, but they're both studying the same basic concepts at Grayhawk Elementary School in Scottsdale.</p> <p>Jordan, 11, is just learning at a higher level than his 9-year-old sister.</p> <p>The approach is called Core Knowledge, an educational curriculum that is becoming popular with parents in Arizona and throughout the country.</p>