A “D” for Dartmouth

By David W. Leimbach | Tuesday, November 28, 2006

“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free…it expects what never was and never will be.”
– Thomas Jefferson

We often hear jokes about the appalling, albeit amusing, ignorance of the general electorate. Before every major election, there is sure to be an entertaining episode of “Jaywalking” in which Jay Leno queries some helpless passerby unable to name the Vice President. But surely students at Dartmouth, one of the nation’s most prestigious colleges, could never be the butt of one of these jokes, right?

A study recently released by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI), a venerable institution that promotes classical values in higher education, gives Dartmouth students a D in their basic knowledge of America’s history and institutions. In addition, Dartmouth, which U.S. News and World Report ranked as the 6th best college in the nation at the time of the study, placed in the next-to-last quintile in the “Civic Learning” rankings.

In the fall of 2005, ISI tested some 14,000 freshmen and seniors at 50 colleges across the country on an array of topics concerning American civics. The survey—a multiple-choice style test—was developed by a nationally renowned team of specialists in each applicable field; it covered sixty themes, including the New Deal and Brown v. Board of Education, and “sought to capture the elementary facts and concepts of history, political science, and economics that contribute most to the civic knowledge needed for citizens to participate responsibly in public life.”

The colleges surveyed ran the gamut, from state institutions like the University of Michigan and the University of California at Berkeley, to Ivy League schools—including Harvard, Yale, and Brown—to lesser-known institutions such as Appalachian State University and Grove City College.

Overall, the report, entitled “The Coming Crisis in Citizenship: Higher Education’s Failure to Teach America’s History and Institutions,” paints a disturbing picture of contemporary college students and the institutes of higher learning that they attend. College freshman across the nation averaged a correct score of 51.7%, while seniors averaged a score that only slightly improved upon the freshmen year score: 53.2%—both failing grades. Of the 50 schools surveyed, 16 schools—including Yale, Cornell, and Duke—actually showed “negative learning.” In other words, at these schools, seniors scored lower than freshmen. Dartmouth seniors scored only .1% higher than Dartmouth freshmen, placing the college in 34th place (out of 50) as far as civic learning goes.

Let’s be clear about this: this wasn’t a test of arcane facts and obscure theories. It addressed what ought to be at the core of a basic American education.

Of seniors tested:

Fewer than half, 47.9%, recognized that the line “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,” is from the Declaration of Independence.

More than half did not know that the Bill of Rights explicitly prohibits the establishment of an official religion for the United States.

Nearly half, 49.4%, did not know that The Federalist Papers were written in support of the ratification of the U.S. Constitution.

A mere 47.6%, could recognize the definition of federalism (the distribution of power between a central authority and several constituent states; that is, the American governance system in which they take part by voting).

Even with their country at war in Iraq, fewer than half, 45.2%, could identify the Baath party as the mainstay of Saddam Hussein’s political support. In fact, 12.2% believed that Saddam Hussein found his most reliable supporters in the Communist Party. Almost 5.7% chose Israel as Hussein’s reliable backer.

Over 80% could not identify Social Security as the government’s largest expense.

Just 44.7%, knew that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was an alliance created to resist the expansion of the Soviet Union.

“Interestingly,” the study notes, “the students who took the test did not complain that the test was too hard. They commonly expressed dismay that their college education had not prepared them better.”

Also of note, the study asserts, “Prestige doesn’t pay off. An Ivy League education contributes nothing to a student’s civic learning.” Some of the best schools in the country (including Dartmouth) had a lower percentage of knowledge gained than less prominent institutions, like Rhodes College, Colorado State University, Calvin College, and Grove City College, which ranked first, second, third, and fourth, respectively.

The study also found that “greater civic learning goes hand-in-hand with more active citizenship.” 86% of the students at the four highest-ranked colleges had exercised their right to vote at least once. Additionally, students who demonstrated greater civic learning were more active in citizenship activities such as community service and political campaigning—essentially, better-informed citizens are more engaged citizens.

Of course, some are critical of the study. Many point out that students at more elite schools start off with more knowledge than the average student, and therefore won’t show as much relative improvement. In response, Rear Admiral Michael Ratliff, a senior vice president at ISI, cited a particularly apropos proverb: of those “to whom much is given, much should be expected.” Besides, a mark in the 60s (a D) is nothing to be proud of—just ask the students at said prestigious institutes, whose median course grades fall somewhere between B+ and A-.

Other critics mention that less selective schools lose a lot of students after their freshmen year, leaving a pool of higher-quality students compared to the more academically diverse body of freshmen. This could explain why some schools might show improvement, but not why schools like Dartmouth fail to exhibit any significant progress or why, at some schools, seniors score worse than their freshmen counterparts.

Many skeptics assert that these questions cover “high school material” and that such sagging results could be expected of college students, who specialize in a variety of specific and unrelated subjects. Indeed, this is largely the study’s point, plainly acknowledging, “Students don’t learn what colleges don’t teach.”

As expected, the study found that “students at colleges and universities that make courses related to America’s history, ideals, and the Constitution more available, attractive, and even a requirement showed significant gains in civic learning.” Since all students, regardless of major, will be citizens, the study recommends that schools “improve the number and quality of required courses in history, political science, and economics.”

Still others argue that testing discrete facts is an inadequate measure of civic literacy. “We think that critical-thinking skills, basic skills of analysis and synthesis, are very much what the university should be focused on,” Admiral Ratliff agreed. “But we also believe that if you cannot place in their proper sequence major events in American history, then you’re not going to be able to achieve that critical thinking.” According to Ratliff, students “overwhelmingly” believed the Bill of Rights addressed racial and gender discrimination. “How can you understand the struggle for women’s rights,” he questioned, “if you think it was taken care of in the Bill of Rights?”

Students today are subjected to a plethora of vying ideologies; yet they know nothing of the historical debates and context; that led to the formation of such beliefs. Critical thinking skills sans historical context is not critical thinking at all: it’s the sloppy thinking that lends itself to the dogmatism endemic to college campuses.

Is it any surprise that the bastions of “intellectualism”—and liberalism—known as the Ivy League do not provide conversance with the framers’ intentions as elucidated in The Federalist Papers? Is it an accident that these institutions fail to teach the fundamental purpose of dividing power between the national government and the states, such that the national government is the ultimate authority, while the states retain their local rights to govern? Is it coincidence that many college students incorrectly believe that defense constitutes a larger portion of the federal budget than social security and possess, accordingly, an ill-informed, though highly opinionated worldview, especially concerning foreign affairs?

As The Weekly Standard put it, “In a day and age where multicultural, anti-Western, and diversity-sensitive courses rule the roost at one of the last thriving havens for liberalism, it shouldn’t be a tremendous revelation that the students who have to endure four years of exposure to this emerge none the more enlightened of the founding, heritage, and rich history of our great nation.”

Of course, I am not suggesting that all professors explicitly misinform their students; many, however, construct a skewed worldview for their students with a disproportionate emphasis on events that reinforce the professor’s own aberrant values and misguided beliefs.

The results of this study are reflective of a broader trend: on college campuses, anti-Americanism oftentimes replaces the great reverence that students could feel for the prosperity of this nation—as it is, it is the most successful working democracy, though most students couldn’t tell you why.

An important distinction has vanished in higher-education: while engaged and active students used to take issue with the U.S. government and its policies, they now attack America—in the abstract—itself. This generation of students deems love for one’s country dangerously nationalistic. The phrase “status quo” has taken on a negative connotation because the unsatisfied activist—and demi-god professors—want change, and want it fast. If students are taught at all about American Civics, they are taught to be ashamed of America’s current position in the world and, as a natural corollary, to be ashamed of the history and dialogue that placed America where it is today on the world stage.

Not surprisingly—and rather ironically—many students seem to have little appreciation for the robust history of the people and ideas that afford them the extensive privileges that they simultaneously enjoy and hate—rendering George Santayana’s observation alarmingly apposite: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

A “D” for Dartmouth

Article Tools

Related Articles