Oh, yeah. Have at it…
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Oh, yeah. Have at it…
A new Marist poll provides some stunning figures. Presumably, every American knows that 4 July is Independence Day, but only 58% of Americans know which year America declared its Independence. Among American adults younger than 30 years old, that figure drops to 31%. Overall, about a quarter of Americans don’t know from which country America declared its Independence.
What have public schools been doing for the last 40 or 50 years? In 1971, the year I graduated from high school, nearly any high school graduate could associate events for numerous years. Just naming the year was sufficient: 323 BCE, 44 BCE, 476, 1066, 1492, 1588, 1776, 1812, 1815, 1854, 1860, 1876, 1914, 1929, 1939, 1941, just to name a few.
In 1971, an average high school student would have been able to associate significant historical events with at least a dozen of those years, if not all of them. In 2011, I doubt that public high school graduates from the last ten years could, on average, associate significant events with a quarter of those years, if that many.
It would be interesting to do a simple comparison using such a metric between public high school students and homeschooled students. I’d predict that the homeschool students would kick ass.
As you celebrate Independence Day today, please take a moment to think about the men and women of our armed forces, past and present, who have willingly risked, and all too often lost, everything to defend our freedom. I worry about America, but there can be nothing very wrong with a country that continues to produce men and women like them.