 |
Human Events...
The Dumbing-Down of
America
by Patrick J. Buchanan
06/21/2011
“Is our children learning?” as George W. Bush so famously asked. Well,
no, they is not learning, especially the history of their country, the
school subject at which America’s young perform at their worst.
On history tests given to 31,000 pupils by the National Assessment of
Education Progress, the “Nation’s Report Card,” most fourth-graders
could not identify a picture of Abraham Lincoln or a reason why he was
important.
Most eighth-graders could not identify an advantage American forces had
in the Revolutionary War. Twelfth-graders did not know why America
entered World War II or that China was North Korea’s ally in the Korean
War.
Only 20 percent of fourth-graders attained even a “proficient” score in
the test. By eighth grade, only 17 percent were judged proficient. By
12th grade, 12 percent. Only a tiny fraction was graded “advanced,”
indicating a superior knowledge of American history.
Given an excerpt from the Supreme Court’s 1954 decision Brown v. Board
of Education -- “We conclude that in the field of pubic education,
separate but equal has no place, separate education facilities are
inherently unequal” -- and asked what social problem the court was
seeking to correct, 2 percent of high school seniors answered
“segregation.”
As these were multiple-choice questions, notes Diane Ravitch, the
education historian, the answer “was right in front of them.”
A poster put out by the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the
Allies, circa 1940, was shown and the question asked, “The poster above
seeks to protect America and aid Britain in the struggle against ...”
Four countries were listed as possible answers.
A majority did not identify Germany, though the poster contained a
clue. The boot about to trample the Statue of Liberty had a huge
swastika on the sole.
“We’re raising young people who are, by and large, historically
illiterate,” historian David McCullough told The Wall Street Journal.
“History textbooks,” added McCullough, “are “badly written.” Many texts
have been made “so politically correct as to be comic. Very minor
characters that are currently fashionable are given considerable space,
whereas people of major consequence” -- such as inventor Thomas Edison
-- “are given very little space or none at all.”
Trendies and minorities have their sensibilities massaged in the new
history, which is, says McCullough, “often taught in categories --
women’s history, African American history, environmental history -- so
that many students have no sense of chronology ... no idea of what
followed what.”
But if the generations coming out of our schools do not know our past,
do not who we are or what we have done as a people, how will they come
to love America, refute her enemies or lead her confidently?
This appalling ignorance among American young must be laid at the feet
of an education industry that has consumed trillions of tax dollars in
recent decades.
Comes the retort: History was neglected because Bush, with No Child
Left Behind, overemphasized reading and math.
Yet the same day the NAEP history scores were reported, The New York
Times reported on the academic performance of New York state high
school students in math and English. The results were stunning.
Of state students who entered ninth grade in 2006, only 37 percent were
ready for college by June 2010. In New York City, the figure was 21
percent, one in five, ready for college.
In Yonkers, 14.5 percent of the students who entered high school in
2006 were ready for college in June 2010. In Rochester County, the
figure was 6 percent.
And the racial gap, 45 years after the federal and state governments
undertook heroic exertions to close it, is wide open across the Empire
State.
While 51 percent of white freshman in 2006 and 56 percent of Asian
students were ready for college in June 2010, only 13 percent of New
York state’s black students and 15 percent of Hispanics were deemed
ready.
The implications of these tests are alarming, not only for New York but
for the country we shall become in this century.
In 1960, there were 18 million black Americans and few Hispanics in a
total population of 160 million. By 2050, African Americans and
Hispanics combined will, at 200 million, roughly equal white Americans
in number.
If the racial gap in academic achievement persists for the next 40
years, as it has for the last 40, virtually all of the superior
positions in the New Economy and knowledge-based professions will be
held by Asians and whites, with blacks and Hispanics largely relegated
to the service sector.
America will then face both a racial and class crisis.
The only way to achieve equality of rewards and results then will be
via relentless use of the redistributive power of government -- steep
tax rates on the successful, and annual wealth transfers to the less
successful. It will be affirmative action, race preferences, ethnic
quotas and contract set-asides, ad infinitum -- not a prescription for
racial peace or social tranquility.
Read it at Human Events
|
