Here’s a few relevant tidbits on this subject from the news….<\/p>\n
Item<\/strong>: “Our standard for high school graduation has slipped badly. Fifty years ago a high-school diploma meant something. . . . We have simply misled our students and misled the nation by handing out high-school diplomas to those who we well know had none of the intellectual qualifications that a high-school diploma is supposed to represent…and does represent in other countries.” — Historian Arthur Bestor<\/p>\n Item<\/strong>: The New York Times<\/em> gave a social studies test to seven thousand college freshmen nationwide. Only 29 percent knew that St. Louis was located on the Mississippi; only 6 percent knew the thirteen original states of the Union. Some thought Lincoln was the first president. The results, the Times <\/em>reported, revealed a “striking ignorance of even the most elementary aspects of United States history.”<\/p>\n Item<\/strong>: The National Association of Manufacturers reports that 40 percent of high school graduates could not perform simple arithmetic or accurately express themselves in English.<\/p>\n Item<\/strong>: Harvard’s Board of Overseers, shocked at entering students’ preparation, published samples of freshman writing to demonstrate how badly high schools prepared students. The Harvard professor who authored the report wrote that there was “no conceivable justification for using the resources of Harvard College” to instruct undergraduates who were unprepared for college work. Another Harvard report, five years earlier, shows that only 4 percent of students who applied for Harvard admission could write an essay, spell, or properly punctuate a sentence.<\/p>\n Oh, I forgot to give the dates for these news items. They come from (in order) 1958, 1943, 1927 and 1896, and are quoted in the book The Way We Were?<\/a><\/p>\n When it comes to what teens are learning, not only is the sky falling, it’s always been falling. A typical example is Diane Ravitch and Chester Finn’s 1980s book What Do Our 17-Year-Olds Know?<\/em><\/a> The book concluded that “if there were such a thing as a national report card for those studying American history and literature, then we would have to say that this nationally representative sample of 11th-grade students earns failing marks in both subjects.” What Do Our 17-Year-Olds Know?<\/em> got lots of press attention and is still pretty commonly cited today.<\/p>\n An academic got curious about What Do Our 17-Year-Olds Know?<\/em>, and did the research to find if similar questions had been asked of national samples of 17-year-olds in the past. Many questions (of the “who was the general at Yorktown?” sort) turn up again and again on these “what do our students know?” tests, so she was able to use the results to compare how 1980s students compared to previous generations when asked the same questions.<\/p>\n The results – which did not <\/em>get lots of press coverage – showed that high-school students know just about the same amount of history today as their grandparents’ generation of high-school students did. (“What Have 17-Year-Olds Known in the Past?” American Educational Research Journal<\/em> 25,4: 759…780)<\/p>\n Actually, the current generation is probably less <\/em>ignorant than previous generations. Six decades ago, only elite 17 year olds were still in high school… most 17 year olds were working. According to the book Setting the Record Straight<\/em><\/a>, “In 1987, 83 percent of U.S. students graduated from high school on time. In 1964, the rate was around 70 percent; in 1944, about 45 percent; in 1933, about 30 percent; and in 1917, about 15 percent. That the overwhelming majority of teenagers today know what only an elite were exposed to 50 or more years ago is quite remarkable.”<\/p>\n There’s no doubt that some public schools are terrible. But overall, American public education does a pretty spectacular job of educating a wide range of the population. The need to improve the worse schools (which is real, and essential) shouldn’t blind us to our system’s successes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Here’s a few relevant tidbits on this subject from the news…. Item: “Our standard for high school graduation has slipped badly. Fifty years ago a high-school diploma meant something. . . . We have simply misled our students and misled … Continue reading