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College students unlearn U.S. history as they are in school longer
by Josiah Bunting III
Now that the season of holly and mistletoe and submitting college applications has arrived, high school seniors and their parents might want to consider how much students are really likely to learn at the university in which they will enroll next fall.
The answer, unfortunately, is not much. The results for American history are particularly dismal. In fact, a recent survey revealed that the typical college student actually loses knowledge about certain key themes relating to our national heritage.
This pattern was especially prominent among students at the most prestigious and expensive colleges included in the survey.
Last fall, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute commissioned a survey in which 14,000 randomly selected freshmen and seniors at 50 colleges were given 60 multiple-choice questions on American history, government, international relations and economics. By subtracting average freshmen scores from average senior scores, researchers were able to validly estimate how much knowledge college students gained overall as well as in each subject area.
Overall, college students failed the civic literacy exam. The average senior scored only 54.2 percent, a scant 3.8 points higher than the average freshman.
Of the four subjects tested, students gained the least knowledge in American history. Scores on this section of exam were dragged down by the remarkable ignorance that freshmen students displayed in the early history of our country up through the Civil War and Reconstruction, and by the failure of colleges to increase this knowledge.
Only 47.73 percent of freshmen, for example, knew Yorktown was the battle that brought an end to the American Revolution. But even fewer seniors - 45.9 percent - knew it.
U.S. colleges, in other words, seem to operate like American-history amnesia machines, making students forget what they once knew.
This is dramatically demonstrated by the 10 American-history facts tested on the exam that college students were most likely to forget. The number in the parentheses below, following each question theme, shows the percent correct among seniors minus the percent correct among freshmen. Since each number is negative, freshmen answered these questions correctly more often than seniors, and the gap widens with each question:
10 The struggle between President Andrew Johnson and the Radical Republicans was over Reconstruction. (-0.89)
9 Thomas Paine argued for colonial independence from Britain in Common Sense. (-1.49)
8 Fort Sumter came before Gettysburg, which came before Appomattox. (-1.54)
7 The war of 1812 was a stalemate. (-1.56)
6 Yorktown was the battle that brought the American Revolution to an end. (-1.83)
5 Jamestown was first settled by Europeans between 1601 and 1700. (-2.03)
4 The Federalist Papers were written to support ratification of the U.S. Constitution. (-4.70)
3 The Monroe Doctrine discouraged new colonies in the Western Hemisphere. (-7.75)
2 President Washington's farewell address warned Americans to avoid entangling alliances and involvement in Europe's wars. (-8.03)
1 Marbury vs. Madison established the power of judicial review. (-10.47)
Generally, seniors at expensive Ivy League colleges were more likely to forget these things than students at less expensive state colleges.
At Yale, which costs $45,000 this year, for example, seniors were 19.10 points less likely than freshmen to know that Marbury vs. Madison established the power of judicial review, and 23.85 points less likely to know that the Monroe Doctrine discouraged new colonies in the Western Hemisphere. At Eastern Connecticut State, which costs $24,061 for an out-of-state student, seniors were more likely than freshmen to know both these things.
Some may argue that schools such as Yale strive to teach their students critical thinking, not rote knowledge, and, thus it doesn't matter that a Yale senior can get a $180,000 education while forgetting the meaning of Marbury vs. Madison and the Monroe Doctrine.
There are at least two reasons not to let such arguments settle the debate over the lack of civic learning at schools such as Yale. The first is that the survey demonstrated that students who gain more civic knowledge during college are also more likely to vote and participate in other civic activities.
The second is that it is unreasonable to believe that a college graduate who does not know the meaning of Marbury vs. Madison or the Monroe Doctrine can engage in critical thinking of any value, let alone participate in well-informed public discussion of, say, controversial decisions by the Supreme Court or foreign policy decisions by Congress and the president.
If we want to keep our republican form of government, we need to do a better job teaching our best and brightest how we got a republican form of government in the first place.
Josiah Bunting III, president of the H. Frank Guggenheim Foundation and superintendent emeritus of the Virginia Military Institute, serves as chairman of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute's National Civic Literacy Board.
— Josiah Bunting III,
San Francisco Chronicle
2007-12-23
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