American Public Flunks Basic Civics
by Deroy Murdock (more by this author)
Posted 11/21/2008 ET
However you regard the outcome of the November 4 election, it was heartening to watch 125 million Americans cast their ballots at precincts from coast to coast. Unfortunately, they and the many millions more who skipped the whole thing collectively know frightfully little about the government we just reaffirmed, the principles that undergird it, and the basic documents in which those ideas are enshrined. Thus, Americans slouch into the 21st Century -- a free and confident people blissfully unaware of how we got here or how we shall continue our 232-year-old tradition of limited self-government.Consider these staggering data:*Fully 71 percent of Americans flunked a 33-question civic-literacy survey conducted by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. Among 2,508 respondents ISI randomly selected, 1,791 failed this test of U.S. historical, political, and economic basics. The average score was just 49 out of 100 -- a solid F. While just 2.6 percent scored Bs on this quiz, only 0.8 percent earned As.
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