"A Basic Test on History and Institutions."

[elfs]

I'm both annoyed and delighted by an article that reads, US officials flunk test of Amerian history, economics, civics:

US elected officials scored abysmally on a test measuring their civic knowledge, with an average grade of just 44 percent, the group that organized the exam said Thursday.

Ordinary citizens did not fare much better, scoring just 49 percent correct on the 33 exam questions compiled by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI).

"It is disturbing enough that the general public failed ISI's civic literacy test, but when you consider the even more dismal scores of elected officials, you have to be concerned," said Josiah Bunting, chairman of the National Civic Literacy Board at ISI.

"How can political leaders make informed decisions if they don't understand the American experience?" he added.

The exam questions covered American history, the workings of the US government and economics.

I'm annoyed by it because several of the questions do not concern the American experience at all. For example, question 13 reads, "Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas would concur that..." Now, I know what they would concur, but that has nothing to do with the United States experience. Question 25 reads, "Free enterprise or capitalism exists insofar as..."

Let me make this clear: The emergence of capitalism as the predominant economic paradigm of the United States is not mandated in our Constitution or other laws. Mercantilism was just as likely an outcome, given the state of our nation when the Constitution was written. The test is clearly written by people with a free-market axe to grind. Howard Zinn's crowd could just as effectively write a quiz that made market capitalism seem like a disaster, invoking robber barons and massacres of union organizers in the 1910s.

It's important that our elected officials know how our economy and our government work, but the questions in this "test" appear to be trying to teach lessons about our economy rather than actually demonstrate knowledge.

That said, I scored 32 out of 33, or 97% correct.

Comments

[doodlesthegreat.livejournal.com]

I got 30 out of 33, for 90%. Which one did you miss?

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

A quick Google on the Intercollegiate Studies Institute turns up the Wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercollegiate_Studies_Institute), maybe biased, as well as the organisation's own website (http://www.isi.org/).

But even I recognise the name of the organisation's first President, a certain William F. Buckley...

Oh, 29 out of 33, and Question #9 was written by somebody who hadn't heardn of the 16th Amendment. The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

Ot maybe a not so hidden agenda?

[blaisepascal]

I misclicked, saying that before Roe v. Wade abortion was generally legal (which I know, and knew, to be the wrong answer, hence the "misclick"), but that was the only wrong one I got.

[ibsulon.livejournal.com]

I thought "government of the people, by the people, and for the people" was in the constitution first.

Mind you, I think that educated people should be able to answer 80% of these questions, as well as recognize the bias of the questions.

[fallenpegasus]

The test did not claim to limit itself to just constitutional principles. A basic grasp of a liberal arts education, and the principles of functional economics is something that I wish to god was in the realm of the understanding of most elected pols.

And against the weight of the logic and the evidence, espousement of Mercantilism today is an excellent indicator that the speaker is a fool, a knave, or a villain, or all three.