Read Reid’s Blog

A Nation Still at Risk

Our Nation is at risk. Our once unchallenged preeminence in commerce, industry, science, and technological innovation is being overtaken by competitors throughout the world.

If I didn’t know any better, this statement could have been released just a few weeks ago in conjunction with education advocacy group Common Core’s press release that 1,700 high schoolers earned a “D” when tested on basic facts of history and literature. Slate has a copy of the test for you to view and I’ll share some of the saddening results:

• Nearly a quarter cannot identify Adolf Hitler, with ten percent thinking Hitler was a munitions manufacturer.
• More than a quarter think Christopher Columbus sailed after 1750.
• Fewer than half can place the Civil War in the correct half-century.
• A third do not know that the Bill of Rights guarantees the freedom of speech and religion.
• Half have no idea what the Renaissance was.
• Nearly half think that The Scarlet Letter was either about a witch trial or a piece of correspondence. [Source: Common Core's Press release]

But, my beginning quote is actually from the preface to the 1983 landmark government study, entitled “A Nation at Risk.” At the time, the United States was engaged in a Cold War and it’s focus on educating scientists and engineers in the post-Sputnik years had waned into a domestic focus on drugs, poverty, and crime. What’s incredible is that over 35 years after the landmark study, our education system continues to fail youth.

So what about solutions? I spent an entire year in high school debate discussing education policy, so I won’t go into semantics or detailed analysis. What I want to point out is that one piece missing from this conversation is what’s being tested and why. As someone who abhorred history throughout middle school and high school but fell in love with it at Stanford, I take offense to the assumption that a undergraduate history major memorized facts and dates. In fact (no pun intended), I do not call taking a single multiple choice test in any of my college classes. It was papers, papers, papers, where we analyzed a historical event, learned how to interpret primary sources, and support a thesis with evidence. This was far from my days of Advanced Placement History, where the final exam looked very similar to Common Core’s test.

While I think it’s pretty sad that high schools don’t know basic U.S. history facts, I also wonder if this has something to do with the content and focus on rote facts and a dumbing down of what history really is and why I find it so interesting. It’s very difficult to hold a teenager’s attention when all you do is make them read a textbook and regurgitate facts on a multiple choice test. Maybe the cynic in me is wondering if anything can be done to change the state of things. I hope hope hope that the next U.S. President will be able to craft an education policy that tackles educational shortcomings head-on.