Troubling New Survey Of Oklahoma High Schoolers Shows They Know Nothing About Civics

fullmetalfan720

fullmetalfan720

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This is truly sad.
http://www.ocpathink.org/publicatio...olume-16-number-9/?module=perspective&id=2321
After seeing the questions for yourself, you the reader can judge whether a 92 percent passing rate is a reasonable expectation for Oklahoma's high-school students. Unfortunately, Oklahoma high-school students scored alarmingly low on the test, passing at a rate of only 2.8 percent. That is not a misprint.
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I know that stats are about Oklahoma HS students, but I recall a few studies that show that most of America (at all ages) know hardly a thing about civics.

In fact, immigrants are required to know a lot more in order to gain citizenship.

Sadly enough, those immigrating to this country know more about our nation's history than its own citizens.

Now, what should we do about it?

~HotShotX
 
[quote name='HotShotX']I know that stats are about Oklahoma HS students, but I recall a few studies that show that most of America (at all ages) know hardly a thing about civics.

In fact, immigrants are required to know a lot more in order to gain citizenship.

Sadly enough, those immigrating to this country know more about our nation's history than its own citizens.

Now, what should we do about it?

~HotShotX[/QUOTE]
Statistics from the article about the rest of the country.
According to Oklahoma's most powerful labor union, the Oklahoma Education Association, "Public education provides individuals with the skills to be involved, informed, and engaged in our representative democracy." Research, however, indicates that public education does not provide individuals with those skills. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) administered a grade-level-appropriate civic knowledge exam to a nationally representative sample of 4th, 8th, and 12th graders in 2006. Only 25 percent of 4th graders, 24 percent of 8th graders, and 32 percent of 12th graders scored at the proficient level on the exam.
The percentage of students scoring "below basic" on civics was 27 percent, 30 percent, and 34 percent, respectively. In other words, at every grade level tested, there were more students failing the exam than demonstrating a solid mastery. Unfortunately, the NAEP does not provide state-by-state results for this exam.
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Statistics for people taking citizenship test:
Ten questions, chosen at random, were drawn from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) item bank, which consists of 100 questions given to candidates for United States citizenship. The longstanding practice has been for candidates for citizenship to take a test on 10 of these items.4 A minimum of six correct answers is required to pass. Recently, the USCIS had 6,000 citizenship applicants pilot a newer version of this test. The agency reported a 92.4 percent passing rate among citizenship applicants on the first try.5
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What do I think we should do? I like the idea in the article about making students pass the citizenship test in order to get a driver's license.
 
Ehhhh, to say that Jefferson wrote the deceleration alone would be wrong. At least the final draft was not done by Jefferson alone.
 
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[quote name='JolietJake']Ehhhh, to say that Jefferson wrote the constitution alone would be wrong. At least the final draft was not done by Jefferson alone.[/QUOTE]
It says that Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. Which he did.

I think our above poster may have stumbled onto the reason our OK HS students did so poorly: reading comprehension.
 
[quote name='Quillion']It says that Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. Which he did.

I think our above poster may have stumbled onto the reason our OK HS students did so poorly: reading comprehension.[/QUOTE]

I'm sick, give me a break.;) There's also no need to be insulting, can we keep this one civilized?

Anyway, he didn't entirely write it on his own. Multiple suggestions and edits from others were included.
http://www.bigpicweblog.com/exp/ind...old_these_truths_to_be_sacred_and_undeniable/
 
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[quote name='DarkSageRK']Can people really be that stupid?[/QUOTE]

You do watch the news, don't you?

Here's an interesting thought: We have a large amount of people who will shout "LIBERTY" and "SOCIALISM" at each other when debating, and we have an alarming amount of people in this country who know jack shit about civics.

~HotShotX
 
Honestly, passing a citizenship test should be a requirement of everyone, not just immigrants to earn the right to vote.
 
Honestly, this was a study of high school students. I bet A LOT of them said "I don't know" just to be cocky assholes.
 
[quote name='numbier_wun']Honestly, this was a study of high school students. I bet A LOT of them said "I don't know" just to be cocky assholes.[/QUOTE]


I agree. It seems like the test takers did not really care about the answers and either left it blank or checked the I don't know box without reading it.

It might be better to look at the final exams from high school senior civics classes instead of random surveys. Those are graded! However, I am sure that breaks some privacy issue.
 
[quote name='numbier_wun']Honestly, this was a study of high school students. I bet A LOT of them said "I don't know" just to be cocky assholes.[/QUOTE]

Exactly, I can only imagine what the results of the health and wellness survey our school was given last year looked like; I know I sure used heroine, cocaine, and marijuana more than 25+ times a month.
 
[quote name='numbier_wun']Honestly, this was a study of high school students. I bet A LOT of them said "I don't know" just to be cocky assholes.[/QUOTE]
This and they don't give a shit, see the 2% who answered Michael Jackson.
 
You guys really think they actually know the answers to these questions? BTW: It was a telephone survey, so it's not like they didn't read the questions.
 
Phone survey makes it even more useless. I never bother with those and I can only imagine how much a teenager would care. Either you goof around or you try and get off the phone as soon as possible. I can easily see someone saying "I don't know" over and over again to just get off the phone without being rude and hanging up on them.

You cannot really say if they knew the answers or not but I would not put much trust in this.
 
At first, I thought this was gonna be good until I actually looked at the stats and saw that this was a phone survey. I'm surprised they didn't get 100% of students that told the callers to fuck off.
 
[quote name='fullmetalfan720']What do I think we should do? I like the idea in the article about making students pass the citizenship test in order to get a driver's license.[/QUOTE]

Wow. Way to pile on the bureaucracy and lard on unrelated requirements, Libertarian.

The freedom you so often stand behind includes the freedom to be a blithering idiot, you know.
 
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