America, Get Smart!

Thank goodness America, we can name the Vice President, but America, who is the Head of The Supreme Court? America? America? Yea well that is what we all expected. In my first report about how much America knows about itself, research really hammered the country showing that we really are clueless when it comes to Civics, Politics, and History. Especially when it comes to taking a test on said information. In my own research based off the United States Immigration Test flash cards and other sources, the results were… Worse than expected!

At the most simplest terms, this chart below shows how many participants passed and how many participants failed the test.

A study by Xavier University found that 35% of Americans would fail a 10 question immigration test (You had to get 6 questions correct to pass). So I created a 10 question test of my own to see whether that was true.  The mode of all my responses, was a total of 3 correct answers! Yes it may be harder for younger people, but these questions ranged from the most basic questions ever, to those that might require more background knowledge. I got 30 responses and as they kept coming in, the results got worse and worse. An answer for the question, “Who did the USA gain independence from?” was, and I am not joking, “Abe Lincoln.” Now for those with less time on this earth than others or maybe those who aren't the best at academic studies, Abe Lincoln is not a country. Though in some categories participants excelled, such as naming the Vice President and only one of the answers was wrong. Compare that though, to the 30% of people who could not name the Vice President according to a scathing Op-Ed piece in the New York Times. The article not only smashes the American public on that, but just about general knowledge as well. Back to my report though; all in all 22 of my subjects, (73% of participants) people failed the test. Thanks to more research a reason appeared.

The now immortalized Abe Lincoln answer.

The Pew Research Center conducted a survey of American news outlets and the results were quite captivating. It found that more and more citizens are “deserting news outlets because it no longer provides the news and information they had grown accustomed to.” To top that off, “campaign reporters were acting primarily as megaphones, rather than as investigators, of the assertions put forward by the candidates and other political partisans.” I find it surprising that this was identified earlier. The news in America is not much of an informational outlet or source, but just a method to spew bloated stories full of misrepresentations to the American public. Unfortunately and truthfully we cannot blame our lack of education on the news, but part of the problem is lack of early studies on these topics.

As it should be known, education is a very hot topic and commodity these days, as you might have heard about lack of education funding or restructuring of Standardized Testing, but my guess is that you have not heard about the lack of history teaching. My theory is and unfortunately I was not able to corroborate this with other research, that the interest and amount of history knowledge correlates to the amount of political education you have. Since this is a theory I would like to remind readers that this is not confirmed but this is purely an opinion of mine. If any of my readers find a source that supports this, please do let me know. There is one last piece of the puzzle missing, and that is how to stem the tide of this disease

Knowing is one thing, acting upon knowledge is another and so I plan to do so. Since most of my testing, research, and focus was on politics, I plan to make a lesson plan about elections candidates and who to vote for. More specifically this will go towards newly registered voters who might need coaching, especially with a midterm election coming up. The goal of this lesson will be to properly and without bias, educate voters on each candidate. Thier background, political, social and personal beliefs and platforms. As well as other relevant knowledge. It may be boring but each voting age person plays a key role, I mean without voters where would this Republic stand? Without voters our country will not function properly and the people will become dissatisfied, but by voting and doing your civic duty, you can prevent chaos and make your voice heard.

Works Cited