Don’t Know Much About History
Thursday, June 16, 2011 at 6:45 PM “[W]e ought to deprecate the hazard attending ardent and susceptible minds, from being too strongly, and too early prepossessed in favor of other political systems, before they are capable of appreciating their own..”
—George Washington, letter to the Commissioners of the District of Columbia, January 28, 1795.
WSJ's Stephanie Banchero has details of a National Assessment of Educational Progress study showing students at the fourth, eighth and twelfth grade levels struggle with basic history questions.
Less than a quarter of American 12th-graders knew China was North Korea's ally during the Korean War, and only 35% of fourth-graders knew the purpose of the Declaration of Independence, according to national history-test scores released Tuesday.
The results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress revealed that U.S. schoolchildren have made little progress since 2006 in their understanding of key historical themes, including the basic principles of democracy and America's role in the world…
The news was even more dire in high school, where 12% of 12th-graders were proficient, unchanged since 2006. More than half of all seniors posted scores at the lowest achievement level, "below basic." While the nation's fourth- and eighth-graders have seen a slight uptick in scores since the exam was first administered in 1994, 12th-graders haven't. Read Students Stumble Again on the Basics of History and try your hand at some of the questions on the NAEP history tests.
To find out whether FPS District students participate in this testing program we recommend checking with your child’s school principal or a member of the Franklin School Board.
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