ACTA teams up with GfK on a new survey on American historical literacy just in time for the premiere of Ken Burns’ PBS documentary, “The Roosevelts: An Intimate History.” The study found that over half of American adults don’t know Franklin D. Roosevelt spearheaded the New Deal, and 59% don’t know Theodore Roosevelt had a role in the construction of the Panama Canal. This is just one in a series of surveys examining historical amnesia about American history.
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 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 […]
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 […]
There were many Roosevelts in that room on E. 76thStreet. On St. Patrick’s Day in 1905, future president Franklin Delano Roosevelt watched his fiancée, also named Roosevelt, enter the drawing room of an upscale residence in New York City. It was Franklin’s wedding day — and giving Eleanor, the bride, away was yet another Roosevelt. […]
There is a crisis of civic education in America today. For the last 20 years, study after study has shown that most Americans lack a basic understanding of the country’s history and political institutions. America’s Knowledge Crisis: A Survey of Civic Literacy, shows that college-educated Americans do only slightly better than those without a four-year […]
In a bit of good news for this Thanksgiving, it appears that many would-be shapers of education policy are plugging for the return of civics to the curricula of schools and colleges. The bad news is that many of the prime movers and shakers behind a “new civics” still cling to the old progressive hostility […]
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