Our Fading American Heritage

In recent days, I have speculated that the election results might be directly related to the last few generations of publicly educated Americans. I was publicly educated. But in those days, public education was mostly administered by local authorities and all of it at the state level or usually below. Today, much of the content and funding is mandated or bequeathed from “higher” (yes, it’s a bit of an oxymoron) domains, at the state level or above. Before the election we saw discussion with people who intended to vote for Obama who could not explain much of anything that he specifically proposed to do. He would bring “change” and “hope.” I think it very likely that many will “hope” they can find another job and “change” will define much disposable income. I heard other interviews where Obama supporters lauded elements that were attributed to Obama that were actually descriptive of McCain’s campaign.

Since the election, we’ve seen the results of a 12 question survey commissioned by John Ziegler and administered by the Zogby polling apparatus . That poll showed that a tiny minority (around 2%) of Obama voters obtained perfect or near-perfect scores on this test which “gauged their knowledge of statements and scandals associated with the presidential tickets during the campaign.” For the most part, they knew little about the Obama-Biden events and proposals, but most could identify the statements circulated about McCain and Palin, irrespective of their factuality.

The Intercollegiate Studies Institute has a web site entitled, “Our Fading American Heritage.”

They have put together a quiz of basic American civics. This is not extraordinarily difficult stuff. I have not intensely studied American History (In studying the history of Western thought, I actually got a clearer sense of World History. I’m guessing I fared relatively well because A) I’ve been inclined to pay attention to such things as much or more than amusing myself with television or computer games, and B) such basics were more essential to a basic education in my school days in the 60’s, 70’s and early 80’s which now are fading into a relatively distant and increasingly irrelevant past.

But anyway, I was uncertain on one question about FDR’s response to a Supreme Court ruling of the unconstitutionality of some of his “New Deal” proposals. I couldn’t rule out all four multiple choice answers. But, most of the questions were much easier. Anyway, non-American civics or history student that I am, I scored a high “A.”

However, the average score of over 2500 people who were administered the quiz nationwide, was 49%: that’s failing and emphatically so. 71+% failed with a score below 59%. Less than 1% scored and “A.” Less than 31/2% scored an “A” or “B.” Less than 11% scored “C” or above. Over 89% scored a “D” or “F.” Many are musing on how the valuing of certain values can be recovered. Information like this makes that a considerably more vexing question.

Here is the quiz itself .

Here are major findings by demographic breakdown

Here is the report card from the site.

Pass the Bromo-Seltzer…