Political Science Prof Finds Students Don’t Know Much About U.S. Government
“many will write how they never actually read the U.S. Constitution, which is horrifying given the number of years they have attended school prior to taking my course”
I bet many of these same students know the current talking points of the progressive left by heart.
The Blaze reports:
Political science professor finds that many of his college students lack basic knowledge about US government
Suffolk Community College political science professor Nicholas Giordano tests his students’ knowledge about basic issues related to U.S. government when class begins, and the tests have served to demonstrate a shocking dearth of knowledge among the students.
In a piece posted on Campus Reform, Giordano explained that one of the tests he gives students includes questions such as, “Who is the Speaker of the House?” and “How many Supreme Court Justices are there?” The educator noted that after a dozen years of giving students the quiz, just 348 out of 2,176 have passed. He described those results as a “shameful indictment of our K-12 education system.” This semester, just 11 people passed in a pool of about 175 individuals.
Giordano said that he also supplies students with an altered version of part of the Russian Constitution, where he swaps out the terms “Russian Federation” for “United States” and “Duma” for “Congress” — he then instructs the students to write a paragraph discussing what they think about it.
“Realistically, their response should be one sentence: this is not the United States Constitution,” Giordano noted. “Instead, many will write how they never actually read the U.S. Constitution, which is horrifying given the number of years they have attended school prior to taking my course. Others will reference Article 7 where it explains ‘…guaranteed minimum wages and salaries shall be established, state support ensured to the family, maternity, paternity and childhood, to disabled persons and the elderly, the system of social services developed, state pensions, allowances and other social security guarantees shall be established,’ and praise the foresight of the founding fathers.”
New piece is up @campusreform explaining why I give my students a citizenship exam & have them do a #Constitution exercise.
The results are abysmal, but there is a method to the madness. https://t.co/RZnWLoE4d9
— Nicholas Giordano (@PasReport) September 16, 2022
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Comments
Imagine how real history teachers feel, if there are any left.
Ignorance is becoming our culture.
Not “is becoming” … “has become” …
Unless it has changed recently, the citizenship exam for LEGAL immigrants was quite inclusive of the system of government in this country. I still have the documents my in laws used, and they are pretty good.
Too bad actual citizens are no longer taught real civics or American history, instead being forced to listen to garbage like the 1619 project by that clown woman.
“Unless it has changed recently, the citizenship exam for LEGAL immigrants was quite inclusive of the system of government in this country.”
The system, perhaps, but the principles are quite another question.
Answer me this: What is the most important idea expressed in the Declaration of Independence?
If you said, “People have the right to replace governments when the fail at their #1 task of protecting the rights of the people,” you’re officially wrong.
The correct answer, according to the immigrants’ final exam (up until the 90s or so) is that “all men are created equal.”
Whatever gave you the idea that something called the “Declaration of Independence” had anything to do with independence? It was all about civil rights, you racist.
One of the requirements to become a First Class Boy Scout is to talk to a civic leader or similar about their duties as a citizen. As an attorney, I could be that person. I always told the scout to read the constitution, then we will talk about it at the next meeting.
My 8th grade social studies teacher included 2 unusual items:
— He handed out copies of the US and USSR constitutions, to read and compare. The biggest difference: “This one is used; the other is window dressing.” This was some time ago.
— Similar to the Boy Scout requirement, each student was required to attend one local, public government activity, returning a form signed by an official there.
Jay Leno was doing the same thing in “Jaywalking” years ago.
I have nothing but compassion for these students who have been ill-served by their secondary schools.
Mark Dice continues the tradition today. And he nearly never gets ID’ed by these NPCs, despite his inclusion of a large “dice” decoration around his microphone.
Ironically, Thomas Jefferson wanted government to run education because his greatest fear was the the succeeding generations would become unaware of the importance of the republican nature of our constitution. He didn’t get his wish until the 1800s. It doesn’t seem to have worked out the way he thought it would.
This particular shortsightness was all too common back in those optimistic days.
Can you imagine the idiocy of believing you could write a document that would constrain the power of government, and then giving the government the supreme power to “interpret” what it “really said?” Insanity.
Elementary and secondary don’t teach about the Constitution because if you know your rights, you’ll know when they are being taken away.
This sounds like the naturalization test, which I found to be a breeze, but apparently a lot of natural born Americans struggle to pass.
Then again, one of my most used apps on my phone is my US Constitution app.