News9 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma;
Only one in four Oklahoma public high school students can name the first President of the United States, according to a survey released today.
The survey was commissioned by the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs in observance of Constitution Day on Thursday.
Brandon Dutcher is with the conservative think tank and said the group wanted to find out how much civic knowledge Oklahoma high school students know.
The Oklahoma City-based think tank enlisted national research firm, Strategic Vision, to access students’ basic civic knowledge.
“They’re questions taken from the actual exam that you have to take to become a U.S. citizen,” Dutcher said.
A thousand students were given 10 questions drawn from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services item bank. Candidates for U.S. citizenship must answer six questions correctly in order to become citizens.
About 92 percent of the people who take the citizenship test pass on their first try, according to immigration service data. However, Oklahoma students did not fare as well. Only about 3 percent of the students surveyed would have passed the citizenship test.
We steal the chart from Jeff Hoard:
The results set the Idiocracy Gauge on fire.
Q: Is our children learning?
A: No, they is not.
Ana Kasparian at The Examiner:
Brandon Dutcher is with the conservative think tank that commissioned the study. He and his group were curious to find out how much civic knowledge Oklahoma high school students know. Unsurprisingly, Dutcher was not too happy with the results.
“It points to a real serious problem. We’re not going to remain ignorant and free,” Dutcher said.
Apparently this level of ignorance is not just a problem in Oklahoma. According to Dutcher, Arizona had similar results, which left him concerned for the entire country.
Yes, but they know how to put on a condom.
UPDATE: Tom Maguire
UPDATE #2: Nate Silver
1 Comment
September 20, 2009 at 8:23 pm
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