Only 18% of Colleges Require Even a Single Course in American History or Government
WASHINGTON, DC—As Ken Burns’ documentary “The Roosevelts: An Intimate History” airs this week, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni today released a survey that shows how little Americans know about Theodore and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
According to the study, 39% of Americans don’t know Franklin D. Roosevelt was president during World War II; 59% don’t know Theodore Roosevelt had a role in the construction of the Panama Canal. College graduates didn’t do much better on the survey. Nearly half didn’t know Teddy Roosevelt had a major role in the Panama Canal; one-third didn’t know FDR spearheaded the New Deal and almost three in five didn’t know he was elected four times. Examine the full survey here.
The survey underscores a problem of historical amnesia made worse by the weak curriculum of many American colleges and universities. According to the What Will They Learn?TM study, only 18% of institutions require students to take a course in American history or government.
This survey is the latest in a series conducted by GfK Custom Research. Previous studies have included a 2014 survey on D-Day that found that a quarter of Americans don’t know D-Day occurred during World War II, and a 2012 survey that found only 57% of college graduates know John Roberts is the chief justice of the United States.
CONTACT:
Daniel Burnett
Director of Communications
202.467.6787
DBurnett@goacta.org
Why do we teach U.S. history and government to students? The answer is simple: to prepare students for engaged and informed citizenry, the essential ingredient for preserving the American republic. Unfortunately, ACTA’s most recent What Will They Learn?® survey of the core curricula at over 1,100 colleges and universities found that only 18% of institutions require students […]
The Founders admonished that informed, engaged citizens would be the indispensable guardian of our liberty. ACTA’s surveys, however, administered over the past two decades, reveal that our schools—and especially our colleges and universities—have done a poor job of ensuring the civic literacy on which our nation depends. Too many institutions fail to require courses that […]
A new survey commissioned by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni sheds a bright light on our nation’s civic knowledge crisis. Colleges and universities significantly contribute to the problem by chipping away at their core requirements in essential areas of knowledge; students graduate unprepared for informed citizenship and the workforce. U.S. history is often […]
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