Independence? From where?

By Elise Viebeck

Jay Leno's "Jay Walking" segment familiarized us with Americans' lack of knowledge of our history. Yesterday, conservative talk show host Sean Hannity took to the streets in similar fashion to ask Americans basic questions about the Fourth of July. The result? Only confirmation that the trend continues: most interviewees did not know that today, we celebrate independence from Britain.

Such ignorance is not limited to the man on the street. In 2005, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) commissioned an ongoing, annual study to track the manifestation of this trend in American higher education. The results confirm the failure of universities in teaching American history, government, and economics and as a result, the lack of basic civic literacy among college graduates.

Contracted by ISI to conduct the survey, the University of Connecticut's Department of Public Policy achieved an accurate cross section of American undergraduates by administering a test to over 14,000 freshmen and seniors at 50 universities across the country. The multiple-choice questions varied in difficulty and addressed topics that students would learn in introductory American history, politics, and economics courses. By calculating the average test scores of the respective classes, then subtracting the freshman score from the senior score, researchers created a "Value Added" index. This numerical value demonstrates how much civic knowledge students gain throughout their four college years.

On average, seniors failed the test on what had been deemed "common knowledge," scoring only 1.5 percent higher than freshman and with overall grade of 53.2 percent. At 16 of the 50 schools seniors scored lower than the freshmen on the exam. This demonstrates a trend which the survey calls "negative learning," or the net loss of competence in a specific subject area.

Perhaps most shocking is the final ranking of schools by average student scores, which turns on its head the idea that prestigious schools provide better education. Obscure and less competitive schools like Rhodes College, Colorado State University and Calvin College top the list, while Stanford, the University of Virginia and Brown are ranked #31, #42 and #47, respectively. Results consistently stray from expectations. For example, MIT's science and technology curriculum prepared its students better for the exam than did Georgetown's acclaimed political atmosphere (#38 over #43). The University of Colorado, Boulder defeated the University of California, Berkeley (#5 over #49). Harvard, the oldest and most selective institution of the Ivy League, barely made the top 50 percent at #25. Prompted by poor student memory and misguided professors, results show "negative learning" occurring at the University of Chicago, Georgetown, Yale, Duke, Brown, UC Berkeley and Johns Hopkins.

The conclusions that follow these results are hardly subtle. Results show, for example, that the more courses in American history, politics and economics a college requires, the higher its students score on the exam. The study defends traditional, core classes in these subjects, which have been eliminated at many schools in favor of specialized courses that cater to professors' specialties and students' whims.

The "coming crisis in citizenship" is empirical and concrete. The study's one notable error, however, is not in its methodology, but in its failure to articulate the larger significance of these statistics. Graduates of four year college today will be public officials and leaders of industry tomorrow. Thomas Jefferson notes that "there is a natural aristocracy among men, the grounds of [which] are virtue and talents," and that it is the "most precious gift of nature for the government of society." If this is true, the ignorance of the today's college students has serious implications for the future of American politics.

Among adults, voter apathy is pervasive and current circumstances are ripe for more discouragement. The crisis for the rising generation, however, will not be one of cynicism. If a cynic "knows the price of all, but the value of none," the average college student is ignorant of the former and cannot, therefore, truly ascertain the latter.

The 2008 Presidential election will quell some fears as it mobilizes the youth for candidates and causes otherwise abandoned. However, without a foundation in civics and a sense of institutional memory young people will be forever caught in the cycle of pop culture politics. Today, as we reflect on the privileges and duties of American life, let us remember the higher standard set by our history, and strive to hold our leaders and ourselves to that standard.

For more information on the study, visit http://www.americancivicliteracy.org

Elise Viebeck is a 2007 Summer Junior Fellow at the Independent Women's Forum.