Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Education Law Blogs -> BoardBuzz: NSBA's Daily Weblog

Education Law

: BoardBuzz: NSBA's Daily Weblog

The hits just keep on coming

This just in, American students have lost touch with history. This according to an article in today's USA Today. The latest in a series of digs at American students (and, by association, American education), this study focuses on students' knowledge of "books and the history associated with them." BoardBuzz doesn't know about you, but we're getting awfully weary of the assertions about the inferiority of American education. That said, there are some valid points made here.

"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.

What would Big Brother say? The point of the study, we suppose, is to point out that NCLB has placed emphasis on reading and math instruction at the expense of other subjects, including history and literature. And that's a movement we can get behind, for certain!

Full post as published by BoardBuzz: NSBA's Daily Weblog on February 26, 2008 (boomark / email).