Failing to learn history’s lessons

The News Virginian / News Virginian
Published: September 22, 2007

In this era of leaving no kids behind, students at America's elite universities and colleges are woefully behind on the subjects of civics and American history, according to a recent study.

The Intercollegiate Studies Institute administered a quiz on those subjects to more than 14,000 freshmen and seniors at 50 top-flight schools, including the University of Virginia, Yale, Harvard, Cornell, Brown and Duke. The average score on the 60-question, multiple-choice test: 54.2 percent. Harvard seniors posted the highest average, a paltry 69 percent, or a D-plus.

ISI trumpets as its prime gotcha its finding that the dismal showing came from schools where presidents rake in salaries of $500,000 or more. These presidents "are simply not doing enough to help preserve our traditions of freedom and representative government," said Josiah Bunting, chairman of ISI's National Civic Literacy Board.

As a former college president and Virginia Military Institute superintendent, Bunting certainly knows of what he speaks. Still, the emphasis on presidents' salaries seems a bit misplaced. Presidents at such schools are largely tasked with keeping the fundraising dollars rolling in, not necessarily with ensuring that students can ace a civics quiz for an independent study.

To be sure, ISI highlights a real problem that should trouble all of us. While some complex questions appear on the test (posted at www.isi.org), it also includes some cupcakes. We'd hope that any college student could identify the unalienable rights cited in the Declaration of Independence or the dominant theme of the Lincoln-Douglas debates.

The question is where to place blame for what students don't know. Higher education deserves its fair share, especially considering that the study showed that students gained little knowledge from their freshman to their senior years - their scores went up by an average of just 3.8 percentage points.

But secondary schools must shoulder blame, too. That's where the foundation of students' education in history and civics should be built. That foundation has been crumbling for years, and the standardized testing movement instituted as a result of federal No Child Left Behind mandates has only exacerbated the decay. No Child focuses on the basics, reading 'riting and 'rithmetic - all essential, to be sure - but fails to emphasize the crucial subjects of civics and history.

A literate public not only knows how to read, it knows its history and the essential theories and thinking that have shaped that history. If we think we can ignore this in the education of our children and still maintain a uniquely American way of life, we are fooling ourselves. History will not judge us kindly.