Nice to see that all our kids are well educated, according to USAToday . *sigh*. Where have you gone, Millard Fillmore? Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you.
Teens losing touch with common cultural and historical references
Big Brother. McCarthyism. The patience of Job.
Don't count on your typical teenager to nod knowingly the next time you drop a reference to any of these. A study out today finds that about half of 17-year-olds can't identify the books or historical events associated with them.
Twenty-five years after the federal report A Nation at Risk challenged U.S. public schools to raise the quality of education, the study finds high schoolers still lack important historical and cultural underpinnings of "a complete education." And, its authors fear, the nation's current focus on improving basic reading and math skills in elementary school might only make matters worse, giving short shrift to the humanities even if children can read and do math.
"If you think it matters whether or not kids have common historical touchstones and whether, at some level, we feel like members of a common culture, then familiarity with this knowledge matters a lot," says American Enterprise Institute researcher Rick Hess, who wrote the study.
Among 1,200 students surveyed:
•43% knew the Civil War was fought between 1850 and 1900.
•52% could identify the theme of 1984.
•51% knew that the controversy surrounding Sen. Joseph McCarthy focused on communism.
In all, students earned a C in history and an F in literature, though the survey suggests students do well on topics schools cover. For instance, 88% knew the bombing of Pearl Harbor led the USA into World War II, and 97% could identify Martin Luther King Jr. as author of the "I Have a Dream" speech.
Fewer (77%) knew Uncle Tom's Cabin helped end slavery a century earlier.
"School has emphasized Martin Luther King, and everybody teaches it, and people are learning it," says Chester Finn of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an education think tank. "What a better thing it would be if people also had the Civil War part and the civil rights part, and the Harriet Tubman part and the Uncle Tom's Cabin part."
The findings probably won't sit well with educators, who say record numbers of students are taking college-level Advanced Placement history, literature and other courses in high school.
"Not all is woe in American education," says Trevor Packer of The College Board, which oversees Advanced Placement.
The study's release today in Washington also serves as a sort of coming out for its sponsor, Common Core, a new non-partisan group pushing for the liberal arts in public school curricula. Its leadership includes a North Carolina fifth-grade teacher, an author of history and science textbooks, a teachers union leader and a former top official in the George H.W. Bush administration.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
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7 comments:
I wonder how the Hughes sisters would do on this test. More importantly, I wonder how the illustrious members of the school board would do.
In a world where "Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader" thrives, I'd be shocked if the liberal arts could make a comeback, which is too bad.
Someone (E. Hemingway?) once said that a Liberal Arts education is the best way to sharpen your bullshit detector (paraphrased or invented, as I can't find it online). Mine should be going off the chart tonight between the public comment of the Q and the glorious pronouncements coming from Mount Hellman.
How come Centennial is getting a new school and we can't?
"How come Centennial is getting a new school and we can't?"
Centennial has a larger tax base.
However, if you protest too loudly, I'm sure someone on the board will get the bright idea to farm our kids out to Centennnial.
I think many of our citizens have ample tax bases. I see newer buildings in surrounding districts being replaced, and the poor Morrisville kids are still in the same school that Beaver Cleaver attended, only now the heater, electric and plumbing don't work so well.
This is exactly what critics of No Child Left Behind had predicted would happen, that students would be reasonably well versed in reading, 'riting and 'rithmatic (the infamous 3 R's) but would lose the broader sense of knowledge.
NCLB is full of problems but I think the idea is sound (probably the one thing George Dubbya has done that I somewhat agree with, at least in theory). The problems, as I see them, are [1] the teachers are forced to "teach to the test," [2] it treats all kids like robots and assumes that they all have the same level of aptitude for each subject, [3] special education is not properly accounted for, [4] history, geography, science, technology, the arts, and other subjects are not measured but are instead relegated as lesser importance, [5] there is no standardization from state to state, and, [6] like all government mandates, is not properly funded.
I'm sure I could come up with more if I put my mind to it. Anyone else ?
In defense of NCLB (a little, I'm like Pete with GWB), Dr. Yonson has said that it's not necessary to 'teach to the test' and her big change when she came aboard (which is working very well, if not immediately perfectly) was to align the curriculum to the testing cycle. Before Beth, the kids weren't even learning some of the stuff they needed for the test until after the testing was done. Classicists and I do fear the loss of that general knowledge base, but I don't even know if we had it in my day. If it wasn't for comic books (and later non-comic books) I don't think I would have known enough to answer those questions. Read to your kids. Don't do drugs.
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