American students don't know much about US history, according to the Nation's Report Card released this week.
Results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress reveal that just 13% of high school students displayed proficiency in US history. 22 per cent of fourth grade students and 18 per cent of eighth-graders scored proficient or better. The students were tested on such topics as colonization, the American Revolution and the Civil War to the contemporary United States.
One reason given for such poor performances is that so much time is spent on the core subjects of language arts, math and science that history gets short shrift. This begs the question of why students aren't proficient enough in these subjects so they can study American history as their forebearers did. In addition, reading and writing about US history should be a vital part of a school's language arts curriculum.
The traditional study of US history also has been diluted by a social studies curriculum which is a grab bag of multiculturalism and a rewriting of history to the point that our nation's story is drown in a sea of political correctness and flat out propaganda.
To paraphrase the old song, it won't be a wonderful world if US students don't know much about their history as many American children will be left far behind.
Comments