Wednesday, September 27th 2006
Everything I needed to know, I forgot in college
A new study is making some waves online. From the San Francisco Chronicle:
Out of 50 schools surveyed, Cal ranked 49th and Stanford 31st in how well they are increasing student knowledge about American history and civics between the freshman and senior years. And they’re not alone among major universities in being fitted for a civics dunce cap…
At UC Berkeley, the results showed freshmen knew more than soon-to-graduate seniors. Freshmen scored an average of 60.4, and seniors scored an average of 54.8. That earned Cal a failing grade, the researchers said.
The backers of the study call it a “crisis”:
“It is at a point in history in this country where it has probably never been more important,” said Eugene Hickok, a former U.S. deputy secretary of education and a member of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. “The study tells us we have a rising generation of bright, intelligent citizens that won’t have the knowledge they need to be informed citizens. We are really only a generation or two away from a republic in pretty big trouble.”
Some professors are skeptical, but acknowledge the importance of learning history:
“There may be real issues here about how universities should organize their curriculum, but there is a scandal-mongering aspect to the way this survey has been presented,” said Professor David Hollinger, chairman of the UC Berkeley history department. “I would not assume that this is a credible survey without more scrutiny.” […]
“I do not doubt that Americans would be better off knowing more history than they do,” Hollinger said. “And I do not doubt that Berkeley would be wise to consider requiring more history than it does.”
And some Berkeley students are pissed at the media’s focus on Berkeley.
Conclusion:
Among the key recommendations in the report are that colleges and universities increase the number of required history, political science and economics courses, improve their assessments of what students are learning, and build academic centers on campus to encourage and support the “restoration” of teaching American history and civics.
To be honest, I’m probably among the seniors who have forgotten much of the historical facts that they came in knowing as freshmen. Yet from the reading I do (in my spare time, never assigned…), I probably know a lot more in general about history, politics, economics, etc. than I did before. Maybe not specific dates or names or places, but important stuff nonetheless. I’d rather not be forced to learn this stuff in a class. Maybe some students are only motivated to learn about these subjects in a classroom environment, but it works the opposite way with me (and probably many others).
More class requirements? I’d rather not. But how about the rest of you?
You can find out more about the report from americancivicliteracy.org.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think this was a longitudinal study. Freshman scoring higher than seniors doesn’t make a convincing argument that anyone is a victim to “negative learning.” There are many possible reasons why one class might know more than another (ex: a smarter entering class than in previous years).
As it relates to the defensive Berkeley livejournal kids:
- Participants not taking the study seriously as they eat food at the DC is a poor explanation for the results. 1) I don’t believe freshmen would take this any more or less serious than seniors, and 2) freshmen scored better than seniors (who are much less likely to eat at dinning commons anyway).
Comment by the cw — 9/27/2006 @ 7:03 pm
Oh I had one more point on the livejournal kids:
- One poster mentioned that they took the survey at the I-house. If these surveys were being passed out at the I-house a lot of foreign students were likely to have been participants. Oops!
Comment by the cw — 9/27/2006 @ 7:05 pm
“In this den of communistic debauchery we also have more than a dozen highly vocal Republicans that buy into cooperation. Irony knows few bounds here at Cloyne Court.”
wtf?
Comment by Anonymous — 9/27/2006 @ 8:32 pm
“American history ?”
It has been long known that UCB American History ranks among the lowest sub- departments of all the history department in the nations elite universities. The bogus report will not put this defining factor in it, as it focuses on generalization of quick-smear-campaign tactics, aimed at all U.C. students across the nation. However, UBC history department’s graduate division ranks #2 in the U.S. tied with Princeton overall, and is slightly under Yale by one point. Why is this? This is because UCB has the best Chinese history department and many other better history divisions overall - just not American history. California history, as U.C.B. is the best in the world and does not rank in the meaning of U.S. history. What one will find is that the best U.S. history departments are found in the cities that saw America’s inception, i.e. the old east towns and cities.
However, the liberal idiocy of this report only reflects the same stupid mentality of Democrats leaking their liberal stupidity of the NIE report which cannot define or get correct the Al- Quada definition of its contemporary Jihad, as outlined by Usama bin Laden himself. This had to be written by a left-wing moonbat. Instead the stupid liberal that composed this section in stead defined Jihad form the New York Dhimmi Times’ view. This is why it is a caution to take these reports with a grain of salt.
Comment by Anonymous — 9/27/2006 @ 10:24 pm
Hats-off to Cheesybunny excellent notice of NBC ‘s ( Liberals Newsweek) moonbat sensitivity.
“”Does College Make You Dumber?” That’s really freaking offensive.”
Good call,
They changed the sather gate photo to the capital and
Changed the tagline too:
Current: ‘Does going to college make students better-educated citizens?’
The article should have be focused on Newsweek’s idiot liberals – “ Do our stupid liberal editors know how to offend the American student population of what?
Comment by Anonymous — 9/27/2006 @ 10:34 pm
Just FYI, the report was done by the ISI, a conservative group (that happens to help fund many conservative college publications, including the Patriot).
Comment by patr — 9/27/2006 @ 11:01 pm
Yeh Anon, you totally lost me in that last paragraph - where did the NIE get involved?
Comment by Archangel — 9/27/2006 @ 11:11 pm
Just FYI, the report, was not correctly administered, presented or done properly. Therefore, the conservative aspect weighs little to nothing of my argument. That was a idiotic liberal approach to statistic gathering and data presentation, in which the left-moonbats at NW had a field day of spinning - wouldn’t be the case if the report was done properly. FO’sI, your not a conservative anyway, so I see why you are so hot under the collar. Were my liberal remarks to insensitive? Republicans are not libertarians. They should change the name of BCR if this is the case for their participants. Give the Republicans back their pride. I often wonder why you are allowed to run this board? Maybe BCR has no other options. What a shame. No wonder this board is mostly empty and devoid of substance, as admitted by many.
Comment by Anonymous — 9/27/2006 @ 11:27 pm
1. I wasn’t offended by anything you said, I just wanted to point out that ISI fact.
2. Republicans aren’t anything in particular. The party is a coalition of conservatives (Reagan), neocons (Bush), paleocons (leftover Buchanan types), moderates (Arnold), liberals (Chafee), and libertarians (Ron Paul).
3. Even if you want to ignore my point #2, BCR doesn’t run the Patriot anyway.
4. Anyone who is involved with the Patriot has an open invitation to become a blogger. And it was never my intention to be the main blogger here, but no one has really shown any interest in doing this regularly, so what can I do?
BTW, I always look forward to these kinds of comments.
Comment by patr — 9/28/2006 @ 1:33 am
“The conservative aspect weights little to nothing of my argument” - Awesome.
So you’re (trying) to say (badly) that “conservative” statistics wouldn’t have been spun? Or that only liberals spin numbers.
Maybe YOU should run this board, Anon! THEN we’d have have some substance - none of that damn liberal pinkoislamofacisithomosexual blogging that we’ve been seeing!
Comment by Archangel — 9/28/2006 @ 7:32 am
“ability to implement on all campuses”
http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/report/summary.html
According to U.C. Berkeley, only the ‘I House’ got this survey-exam. That meant their claim is bogus. In addition, the I-House caters to a foreign student population of whom come here with special interests, most notably hardly any to study American history. Therefore, Berkeley was shafted from the start.
Here check this out: “Phone interviewing proved to be logistically impractical”
Yeah, they call up on a Friday night, possibly thinking this is a better time then the day, and the student is drinking and half-hardily blurts out whatever answers. What professionalism. That was ¼ of the total amount in data gathering procedures.
Here are the themed questions:
1. Jamestown colony
2. The Puritan religious tradition
3. Form of the U.S. government
4. George Washington’s founding role
5. The American Revolutionary War
6. The unalienable rights enumerated in the Declaration
7. Chronology of major historical events
8. Origin of the doctrine of separation of church and state
9. Outcome of the War of 1812
10. The thought of Abraham Lincoln
11. Timing of the Civil War
12. The New Deal
13. Reconstruction*
14. Women’s suffrage
15. Roe v. Wade
16. Brown v. Board of Education
17. World War II
18. Declaration of Independence
19. Plato’s Republic
20. The concept of representative democracy
21. The Federalist Papers
22. Concept of the separation of powers
23. Marbury v. Madison
24. Federalism defined
25. Common law
26. John Locke and the Declaration of Independence
27. Founders’ understanding of moral and political knowledge
28. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
29. Classical thought and relativism
30. The Bill of Rights
31. The nature of society
32. Thomas Paine and Common Sense
33. Enumerated powers
34. President Washington’s foreign policy
35. Monroe Doctrine
36. Traditional just war criteria
37. NATO
38. Alternative forms of government
39. Alexis de Tocqueville (Democracy in America)
40. The United Nations
41. The Cold War and the USSR
42. The Kennedy administration
43. Concept of balance of power
44. The Vietnam War*
45. The Cold War
46. Saddam Hussein
47. Persian Gulf War 1991
48. Inflation and the value of money
49. Free enterprise defined
50. Source of market prosperity
51. Gross Domestic Product (GDP)*
52. Definition of business profit
53. Concept of a public good
54. Keynesian economic thought and policy
55. Income distribution in America
56. Gains from trade*
57. Law of demand*
58. Monetary policy*
59. Tax policy
60. Federal budget
One will note that the survey’s objective ‘was’ spun by Newsweek to - how much a student understands American democracy – this is a test on mainly themes of American history – not how democracy works. Also note that one can write graduate theses on each of these themes, because these are general history topics ( most) and nothing to do with how America’s version of Democracy works. Maybe #25 Common law which has nothing to do with American history in the first place, but does factor in on the roots of how democracy is run in general– but not the focus of the target objective.
I notice a few candidates in these themes for pertaining to how democracy works, but not as a whole if we take the Newsweek by- line and place it against the actual wording of the test. Plato’s republic is a feudal/communist/socialist society study, invented by him; what does it have to do with a Republic in general? - Nothing, nor does it have anything to do with American history. Most founders thought he was basically a kook.
“Nature and society” is Darwinism. WTF does that have to do with democracy? Darwinism is the lawless – might is right natural philosophy of biological observance.
“Gains from trade” Yeah, what decade, no…wait, what century are your refereeing too and which state or county?
“Founders’ understanding of moral and political knowledge”? Which founder ptr? All had different opinions. The Constitution was barely agreed upon, barely sighed and the public barely ratified it – as they were all fighting over understanding of moral and political knowledges.
This is why professors take this survey with a grain of salt. It is garbage and a waist of American or private tax dollars’. It would have been easier to sample the amount of requirements for U.S. government classes in the 4-12 grades to ascertain info into how many kids probably knew. I only had to take one. The American government class. Yes, that is not enough, so I agree with their outcome – we need more concentration on American history. But why take the stupid expensive and clumsy rout to obtain something Professors are laughing at as a waste of time?
Comment by Anonymous — 9/28/2006 @ 6:34 pm
Berkeley’s Conservative Voice ( By-Title on CalPatriot main page?)
“BCR doesn’t run the Patriot anyway”
Berkeley’s Conservative Voice doesn’t mean ‘moderates (Arnold), liberals (Chafee), and libertarians (Ron Paul).‘?
That’s where you are slipping in your argument. I had thought that this was BCR’s domain, as they preach it as their campus-info-home. Now that you clued me-off to BCR has nothing to do with CalPatriot. Let me ask you again. You are a libertarian, and the by-title to this blog is “Berkeley’s Conservative Voice.”
Conservative doesn’t mean libertarian, but I know you think it does because it has nominal ties in some ideas – so why do they let you run this blog or at least be a main contributor to its subject matter?
“Anyone who is involved with the Patriot has an open invitation to become a blogger.”
Most right-wing blogs allow lefties in to blog whenever they want – so what is your point? The point is they start the discussions. Here it is a conservative blog, by its affirmation, but a libertarian has the crux-handle. You still do not understand do you?
“I wasn’t offended by anything you said” that’s what you say, I felt it by your nomenclature BTW. Why would CalPatriot’s parent company make my feelings any different to my argument? that was your reponce to what I said! Frankly I didn’t care. In fact, I agree with Professor David Hollinger, which you so graciously put in to your post which was most important. Regardless that ISI put this out – it was done with a liberal idiotic mentality ( as I originally stated) , produce and administered extremely poorly, and put down U.C.B. in its verbiage in the final results - the school I love.
There was no validity to argue over here. The study was crap, and didn’t signify any real hard evidence to what Berkeley student’s knew, understood, or were taught about of American history. If you want the students to come out of college and understand American history you get on the phone and scream at the PTA, The ATA and all the other Educational Associations of America that call the curriculum shots. I say you need a good two semesters of American government, and two semesters of American history to do well on understanding America. There - I solved the problem for free. And, I managed not to put down students in which it was not their fault in the first place – which the F**** report does.
You may want to ask why “Educational Associations of America” do not want the U.S. children to learn about American history? Americans are bad to them and they must go down. Islam to the lefties in America look like saints. You see all issues covered, and problem solved.
Comment by Anonymous — 9/28/2006 @ 7:11 pm
Can you explain the liberal idiotic mentality thing again? I’m a idiot liberal, mentally anyway, so I have trouble understanding these things.
Comment by Archangel — 9/28/2006 @ 7:58 pm