This report has been making the blogospheric rounds today and it is, well, damning of our educational system’s ability to impart civic knowledge, to put it bluntly.
Simply stated, when presented with a 60 question test covering basic U.S. history, civics and political philosophy, Harvard seniors scored best with a D+ average. All other schools’ students scored worse.
The report’s findings are extremely interesting — not only are our college students culturally and politically illiterate, but they actually score lower on average after attending four or more years of higher education. College makes kids dumber, apparently.
Bop on over and take the test yourself and (hopefully!) you’ll be able to report: “I’m smarter than the average Harvard grad.”
(Full disclosure: I scored 54/60, missing questions 18, 19, 36, 54, 58 and 60. I guess I need to brush up on my Just War, Keynsian economic theory and good governance oversight…)
Is Our Harvard Grads Learning? No.
Civics Test…
I got 53 out of 60 here. I’m kind of embarrassed. But my score was 19 percent better than the average Harvard senior. (Via Doug at Literal Barrage.)…
I got to 36 and figured I should stop. I believe that I did know some of the harder ones, such as what the constitution was based on. Thank you “A Patriots Guide to American History”!! I hope that I would have beat out the low %’s though.
Got a 51. You and I have the same issue I bet on 18, 36, 58. But I got # 60…
We’re engineers that overthink everything, so much so that we got B+’s in Econ 1 because we thought too hard?
I actually got a B- because I was WAY past supply demand and into firesale…