Still Stupid in America

Didn't Radley Balko just highlight a NY Times article about immigration fueling innovation because Americans have lost the drive to innovate?

Well the obvious solution here is to revoke the US citizenship of 96.5% of high school students.

My wife had a good laugh when she took the citizenship test. But she wasn't surprised, because she'd also been attending a NY college and found it less challenging than her Polish high school.

What an easy test! I learned all this in junior high social studies. Yes, I still remember most of what I learned in school and still apply that knowledge to everyday tasks. I'm shocked that today's students can't even recall what they learned yesterday let alone years ago.

Forget vouchers; public primary and secondary schools should be funded just like public universities and hospitals. Parents should pay what they can with much lower school taxes making up the difference.

Maybe you should have to pass the test to get your voter card.

The first President was John Hanson, right?

"You simply cannot create a litmus test for voters. At what point does a voter become satisfactorily 'informed'? Do they have to know the name of the president, vice president, both their senators? This is the problem with your argument; you don't state how informed a voter should be, just that they should be. This is a very slippery slope."

Source: http://townhall.com/columnists/JohnStossel/2008/10/29/a_duty_not_to_vote?page=2

"Sooo Ignorant about America"

John, this test is reliable and valid; that American students are not taught the basic historical facts about the beginnings of the United States. This doesn't mean our kids are stupid. In Illinois my children had to pass such a test in 8th and 12th grades to graduate. Now in college, they both were able to answer these questions correctly.

I would like to see you interview students and teachers in South Dakota and Minnesota and compare their curriculum and achievement to New Jersey students. I don't think any one district is going to represent the United States as a whole.

I would like to see you interview students and teachers in South Dakota and Minnesota and compare their curriculum and achievement to New Jersey students. I don't think any one district is going to represent the United States as a whole.

The answer given on the test for question 11 says we are a capitalist/market economy. This is incorrect. We are a mixed economy moving toward socialism.

John,

A HS graduation requirement? What would that solve? Nothing. Memorizing a bunch of useless facts? Yes I said it, useless. It would certainly be nice if Americans wanted to know these things for personal pride in our country, but this is clearly a case of rational ignorance.

I aced plenty of tests in my HS days, if I were given the same tests now I might not pass some of them. Just because someone memorized some facts when they were 18 to pass a test, doesn't mean their going to remember them for the rest of their lives.

privatize public school, I do not want to pay taxes for public schools anymore. Let the parents decide were and how to educate their children. If parents unable to provide education for their kids, teach them yourself (home school) if parents can't teach their own kids then hire someone who can, can't afford it then find a charity to assist you. their are other way to educate than to be forced by government on where, what, when and how.

@jakeRuss: I'm not entirely sure how useless these factoids are. If students do not realize the Constitution is the highest law in the land, then how can we ever expect for the law to be properly understood?

These types of things are extremely problematic when our society rests on a slippery slope of losing liberty. This ties in nicely with what @g posted (although decidedly out of context). There is nothing more dangerous than ignorant people deciding who will lead them through a period of time in a society they have no concept or understanding of.

@colson

Maybe you have a point with the constitution question, but that wasn't the ones I was referring to. John highlighted “Who was the first President?” and “How many justices are on the Supreme Court?” as his examples of the types of questions. The answers to those are decidedly not useful for functioning in this country. If those answers are needed, said person can look them up.

I want Americans to want to know these things. But having these things memorized says nothing of one's intelligence.

The public school monopoloy CAN NEVER BE BROKEN. Two reasons:
1) Teacher unions and related special interesting groups are important voting blocks that are far more important than students. Students, after all, don't vote. Any possible pay off to removing the school system monopoly would be many years off ... much too far over the horizon for any politician to realize any real gain in terms of votes. And votes are the most important currency because that's what keeps a politician employed.
2) Allowing competition among schools and funding all schools equally, regardless whether private, public, or otherwise, would also potentially mean freedom of thought. Control of the school system is imminently important as that is control of what young people learn and believe.

And if you want to get cynical about it, why would any politician want an educated populace? An educated populace might not be so easy to fool all the time. They might actually realize that the politicans aren't helping them, but instead are a burden to progress and quality of life.