RALEIGH – Political elitists everywhere, of all political parties and persuasions, should take note of this: on a recent survey of civic literacy in America, elected officials scored lower than the general public did.
I highly recommend the Intercollegiate Studies Institute’s ongoing American Civic Literacy Program. Carolina Journal has given its disturbing findings a lot of coverage in the past. The most-recent survey, released last month, included a sample of elected officials for the first time. Their failure rate was 74 percent, compared with 71 percent for the general public.
On average, elected officials scored a 44 percent. The public scored a 49 percent. Neither score is good. But surely politicians should have been expected to score much higher in civic literacy (with certain Chicago pols excepted, for obvious reasons).
Were ISI’s questions unfair or obscure? Not at all. Judge for yourself by visiting the website and taking the test. Here are some of the questions that elected officials were more likely to answer incorrectly than the general public was:
• 79 percent of politicians didn’t know that the Bill of Rights expressly prohibits establishing an official religion for the U.S.
• 30 percent didn’t know that “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” are inalienable rights referred to in the Declaration of Independence.
• 43 percent could not identify the role of the Electoral College in our system of government. One of five politicians thought it either “trains those aspiring for higher political office” or “was established to supervise the first televised presidential debates.”
Apparently, what we really need is a Civic College to teach elected officials and their constituents basic facts and concepts about American government, history, and economics. But hold on, you might ask, don’t we already have hundreds of excellent colleges and universities doing that job?
Nope. In last year’s report, ISI reported that at most American campuses, there was little gain in civic literacy from freshman year to senior year – and at a number of universities, including Duke, the freshmen actually outscored the seniors.
With the economy in recession, millions of people fearful about their jobs and family prospects, a crumbling infrastructure, new threats to freedom, and the world facing a resurgence of terrorism and even piracy, a lack of civics knowledge among Americans may not seem like a crisis. But I would argue that increasing the general public’s understanding of history, economics, and the fundamentals of free government institutions is an essential prerequisite to addressing the many other challenges we face.
Yes, I know I left the elected officials out of the last sentence. It’s important to set realistic goals so as to avoid crushing disappointments.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation