As Americans gear up for our country’s 250th Independence Day, a shamefully small percentage of the rising generation truly understands what we’re celebrating. On the latest Nation’s Report Card, only 22 percent of eighth graders had a proficient understanding of civics. A measly 14 percent were proficient in U.S. history.
This cohort, which was tested as eighth graders in 2022, graduated from high school this year. In practice, this means that emerging adults are woefully unprepared to take on the responsibilities of citizenship.
Most of this cohort is now eligible to serve on juries; less than half knew that the Bill of Rights guarantees citizens the right to a jury trial. Almost all of them will be eligible to vote in this year’s midterm elections, yet only 34 percent knew the functions of the three branches of government. All of them will participate in civic life, whether as neighbors, citizens, taxpayers, parents, or perhaps all of those things. This makes it all the more concerning that 31 percent could not identify why freedom of expression is important for a healthy society.
Ten generations ago, a group of patriots – most of whom were young adults – laid the groundwork for the greatest country the world has ever known. They did a lot of writing, winning the war for public opinion through Common Sense and The Federalist Papers. There was no public school system at the time, but there was a public that was willing and eager to read these texts, which most young people cannot understand today.
Now, not only are the public schools failing to deliver a history and civics education, they are also failing to teach the reading skills students would need to educate themselves on these topics.
Thanks to decades of under-education, 28 percent of American adults rated at or below the lowest level of literacy on an international assessment. That number is likely to worsen over time. Long-term trend results released by the National Assessments Governing Board last month show that 42 percent of 13-year-olds cannot summarize main ideas of long passages, identify paraphrases of what they’ve read, or connect related ideas in longer texts.
Without these skills, they stand little chance of being able to understand or appreciate the genius of the founders in their own words. It is sad yet unsurprising that American pride has declined along with the quality of our education system. According to a recent survey by the Public Religion Research Institute, only 34 percent of young adults say they are proud to be an American. American pride increases by age group, topping out at 66 percent among Americans 65 and older.
A resurgence of patriotism will require the rising generation, and every generation after it, to read and understand our founding documents and their philosophical underpinnings that have propelled this country through a quarter millennium of innovation. This cannot happen without radical honesty about the dismal state of American education.
Right now, there is a culture of silence around the true status of our schools. According to Gallup, “nine in 10 parents believe their child is at or above grade level in reading and math.” It’s hard to blame them for this erroneous belief, given that “roughly eight in 10 students in the U.S. receive mostly B’s or better.”
America’s public schools are sites of educational malpractice, covered up by educational fraud. No one in the public school ecosystem has the incentive to be honest about what a student can and cannot do.
Governors don’t want to preside over falling graduation rates, which would naturally result from raising the standards needed to earn a diploma. Teachers don’t want to deal with parents angry that their kids are bringing home bad grades. Administrators don’t want to deal with teachers frustrated by angry students and parents. As a result, schools cover their own poor performance with good grades, which ultimately lead to diplomas that no longer signify readiness for the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.
The only adults in this equation with an incentive to ensure the children are educated are their parents – the same parents who are being lied to, en masse, by public school employees for their own convenience.
Americans have many accomplishments to be proud of as we mark this milestone birthday, but a thriving education system is not among them. If this country is to survive for another 250 years, it will be because we stopped celebrating, or even tolerating, educational mediocrity.
