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 first on the chopping block: Only 18% of colleges require students to take foundational courses in U.S. government or history. The consequences of this trend are alarming. According to the survey, 26% of respondents believe Brett Kavanaugh is the current chief justice of the Supreme Court; only 12% know that it was the 13th Amendment that freed the slaves in the United States; 30% think the Equal Rights Amendment guaranteed women the right to vote; 18% chose Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as the author of the New Deal, a suite of public programs enacted by President Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s; and over 60% of respondents could not identify the term lengths for members of Congress.
Just in time for the 2016 general election, ACTA released a survey that shows that many Americans lack the basic knowledge they need to participate in the most important civic sacrament—37% of those surveyed didn’t know when Election Day is held every four years. The survey also reveals startling economic illiteracy among college graduates. The […]
The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) today released a survey that shows how little college graduates and the general public know about the Constitution. According to the study, nearly 10% of college graduates think Judith Sheindlin—commonly known as Judge Judy—is on the Supreme Court; one-third of college graduates can’t identify the Bill of […]
In time for the 150th anniversary of the tragic night when John Wilkes Booth slipped into Ford’s Theater and shot President Abraham Lincoln, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni released a survey that reveals another tragedy: Lincoln—and much of his legacy—is being lost to the ages. According to the survey, only half of the American […]
The advancement of empirical science, the Industrial Revolution, and then the technological revolution, the development of representative government, Homer, Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, Michelangelo’s David and Da Vinci’s masterpieces. Bach, Beethoven, Chopin. It’s been a rather remarkable run. And how remarkable that this engine of human progress seems strangely to be faltering. Seventy-one years ago, French […]
They’re only off by one word—and 86 years. A new poll by a higher education advocacy group found that 18% of American adults believe Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was behind the New Deal, the package of government interventions President Franklin Delano Roosevelt introduced in 1933. The freshman congresswoman representing Queens and the Bronx is in fact the primary House […]
A recent national survey shows a lack of basic knowledge of U.S. history and civics among Americans, with a number of respondents not knowing the current Supreme Court Chief Justice, or thinking Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez authored the New Deal instead of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Conducted by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, “America’s Knowledge […]
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