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Civic illiteracy and our universities
Today is Constitution Day and as we all know from watching Leno's Jaywalking interviews, Americans are celebrating the ratification of a document whose basic principles few of them understand. While the evidence showing widespread civic illiteracy continues to mount, one question remains: What do we do about it?
Congress's solution was to implement Constitution Day, which requires "[e]ach educational institution that receives Federal funds for a fiscal year [to] hold an educational program on the United States Constitution on September 17." But what about the other 364 days of the year?
Our latest report card on higher education reveals that universities must to do a much better job of educating the next generation of citizens. In What Will They Learn? we found that:
* None of the top 20 national universities, as ranked by U.S. News & World Report, require their students to take a broad course in American history or government.
* Nationally, only 11 out of 100 leading universities ensure their students graduate having taken at least one broad course in American history or government.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free," said Thomas Jefferson, "it expects what never was and never will be."
Posted by David Azerrad on September 17, 2009 at September 17, 2009 05:08 PM
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