Failing Our Students, Failing America: Holding Colleges Accountable for Teaching America’s History and Institutions

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America’s Founders were convinced American freedom could survive only if each generation understood its founding principles and the sacrifices made to maintain it. Failing Our Students, Failing America: Holding Colleges Accountable for Teaching America’s History and Institutions asks: Is American higher education doing its duty to prepare the next generation to maintain our legacy of liberty?

In fall 2005, researchers at the University of Connecticut’s Department of Public Policy (UConnDPP), commissioned by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute’s (ISI) National Civic Literacy Board, conducted a survey of some 14,000 freshmen and seniors at 50 colleges and universities. Students were asked 60 multiple-choice questions to measure their knowledge in four subject areas: America’s history, government, international relations, and market economy. The disappointing results were published by ISI in fall 2006 in The Coming Crisis in Citizenship: Higher Education’s Failure to Teach America’s History and Institutions. Seniors, on average, failed all four subjects, and their overall average score was 53.2%.

This report follows up on The Coming Crisis in Citizenship. It is based on an analysis of the results of a second survey of some 14,000 freshmen and seniors at 50 colleges conducted by the research team at UConn in the fall of 2006. The results of this second survey corroborate and extend the results of the first. Seniors once again failed all four subjects.

The question now is: Will legislators, donors, trustees, parents, and other decision-makers hold colleges accountable?

Do You Possess Civic Literacy? Take the test: http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/resources/quiz.aspx

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