The High Price of Historical Illiteracy
Thomas Jefferson, in an 1816 letter to a member of the Virginia General Assembly, made this observation: “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” He wrote this passage to highlight the need for a system of primary schools in the Old Dominion. Eventually, the Commonwealth did establish a public school system, though Jefferson didn’t live to see it. That is just as well, perhaps. He would certainly be horrified by the ignorance of the people who attend and receive diplomas from our public schools.
During recent years, numerous studies have found that most Americans don’t know enough about the nation’s history and Constitution to pass the U.S. Citizenship Test. A particularly thorough 50-state survey of 41,000 Americans was published by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation in 2019. Nationally, only 4 in 10 passed. In only one state, Vermont, was a majority (53 percent) able to earn a passing grade for U.S. history. This dismal state of affairs was clearly exacerbated by the ill-conceived school shutdowns that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, as the low 2023 ACT test scores demonstrate.
But the problem predates the pandemic, which arrived on our shores a year after the foundation’s survey was conducted. The real explanation can be derived by breaking out the scores by age group: In the 65+ group, 76 percent passed. Only 51 percent of the 45 to 64 group passed. In the under 45 group, a mere 27 percent passed. This suggests that history instruction has been neglected in public schools for decades. As Timothy S. Goeglein explains in his book, Toward a More Perfect Union: The Moral and Cultural Case for Teaching the Great American Story, this neglect of history in public schools comes at a high price:
Thomas Jefferson, in an 1816 letter to a member of the Virginia General Assembly, made this observation: “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” He wrote this passage to highlight the need for a system of primary schools in the Old Dominion. Eventually, the Commonwealth did establish a public school system, though Jefferson didn’t live to see it. That is just as well, perhaps. He would certainly be horrified by the ignorance of the people who attend and receive diplomas from our public schools.
During recent years, numerous studies have found that most Americans don’t know enough about the nation’s history and Constitution to pass the U.S. Citizenship Test. A particularly thorough 50-state survey of 41,000 Americans was published by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation in 2019. Nationally, only 4 in 10 passed. In only one state, Vermont, was a majority (53 percent) able to earn a passing grade for U.S. history. This dismal state of affairs was clearly exacerbated by the ill-conceived school shutdowns that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, as the low 2023 ACT test scores demonstrate.
But the problem predates the pandemic, which arrived on our shores a year after the foundation’s survey was conducted. The real explanation can be derived by breaking out the scores by age group: In the 65+ group, 76 percent passed. Only 51 percent of the 45 to 64 group passed. In the under 45 group, a mere 27 percent passed. This suggests that history instruction has been neglected in public schools for decades. As Timothy S. Goeglein explains in his book, Toward a More Perfect Union: The Moral and Cultural Case for Teaching the Great American Story, this neglect of history in public schools comes at a high price:
