www.ditl.org

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Only one in four Oklahoma public high school students can name the first President of the United States, according to a survey released today.

The survey was commissioned by the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs in observance of Constitution Day on Thursday.

Brandon Dutcher is with the conservative think tank and said the group wanted to find out how much civic knowledge Oklahoma high school students know.

The Oklahoma City-based think tank enlisted national research firm, Strategic Vision, to access students' basic civic knowledge.

"They're questions taken from the actual exam that you have to take to become a U.S. citizen," Dutcher said.

A thousand students were given 10 questions drawn from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services item bank. Candidates for U.S. citizenship must answer six questions correctly in order to become citizens.

About 92 percent of the people who take the citizenship test pass on their first try, according to immigration service data. However, Oklahoma students did not fare as well. Only about 3 percent of the students surveyed would have passed the citizenship test.

Dutcher said this is not just a problem in Oklahoma. He said Arizona had similar results, which left him concerned for the entire country.

"Jefferson later said that a nation can't expect to be ignorant and free," Dutcher said. "It points to a real serious problem. We're not going to remain ignorant and free."

sunnyside wrote:I'm still not so quick to simply blame the education system. I think this is more of a "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink" problem.

I think this ties into an article I read recently. Our top rated science and technology high school is merit based to get in. Despite Asians being a smaller minority in the area overall, they now make up the majority of students that get in, due to coming from and/or maintaining a culture that values education.

The above are civics/history related questions, and while getting high school students to care enough is a general problem, those areas are at the bottom of the barrel.

They consider much of civics, history, and geography useless. That goes even for many smart kids who are big on math and science.

The problem is compounded by the fact that, for the most part, they're right.

But the problem is that you don't have to pass a civics test in order to be able to vote, and that's where high schoolers not having a clue is bad for all of us.

Though on that note I have a feeling it isn't a coincidence that the study was sponsered by a conservative think tank. In my experience when someone starts going on about the constitution, past wars, fighting for independence, or history in general they more often than not have conservative leanings.

Sonic Glitch wrote: Considering I am a teenager, am majoring in Education to teach High School History, and am shamelessly liberal, I must disagree with your last point somewhat Or at least inform you that there are exceptions to the rule.

Sionnach Glic wrote:Jesus Christ. Even I know which state the capital is in, and I've never even been there.

Mikey wrote:While this sucks, it's not news. This has been an ongoing problem, recently aggravated by "No Child Left Behind." In the school at which my wife works, two teachers (albeit ESL teachers, not born or raised in the US) swore up and down that Washington, D.C. was, in fact, located in West Virginia.

Nickswitz wrote:The Valedictorian of my class swore it was in PA, and he was born, raised, and educated in NYS...

Mikey wrote:

Sionnach Glic wrote:Jesus Christ. Even I know which state the capital is in, and I've never even been there.

Really? Do tell. (Trust me, I'm going somewhere with this.)

Mikey wrote:

Nickswitz wrote:The Valedictorian of my class swore it was in PA, and he was born, raised, and educated in NYS...

Well, Philadelphia was the capital once, briefly...

Sionnach Glic wrote:Well, geographicaly it's within the borders of Maryland. But it effectively counts as its own "state", right? That is to say, Maryland's government has no control over what goes on there and it has its own administration.