This chart and the title speak for themselves as a monument to educational failure. But even these dismal numbers do not tell the whole story themselves. At the beginning of the month, the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs released the results of a survey of civic knowledge among high school students. One Thousand students were surveyed with ten short questions and their collective results are above.
Let me draw your attention to question 7, “What are the two major political parties in the US?”
The three choices are “Democrat and Republican,” “Communist and Republican,” and “Don’t Know.” Less than half of the respondents got this question correct.
I thought I knew some dumb people in high school, but I find it hard to fathom what a person must be like to get this question wrong, as over half of the thousand Oklahoma students did.
To pass the test in real life (to become naturalized), a candidate must correctly answer 6 out of the 10 questions given. Real life immigrants from other countries pass at a rate of about 92%. The passage rate among Oklahoma students was less than 3%.
I would have liked this post better had the surveyed state been Texas.
Was it convenience sampling or systematic sampling? That makes a difference, you know. Maybe I just don’t want to accept the fact that so many public schoolkids don’t pay attention in their government classes.
It was systematic sampling conducted by Strategic Vision. They do polling and such, and even though they might be a little partisan (leaning to the right), they are professionals.
Pennsylvania isn’t perfect at education, but I can’t imagine pulling random kids off a bus in PA and having them do that poorly. Even off the short bus, they could do better…