Reply #19: 88.33% while under the influence.

[leftyclimber]

(last night, not now)

I have problems with some of the findings as interpreted to a general-public audience, though. Foremost is the assumption that a university education exists to teach students civics. IMO, students should've learned civics all the way through school. It's a little late to start playing catch-up in college. We cannot continue use college as a remedial training ground for every subject under the sun. We do too much of that already.

If universities implemented everything in the various "college is failing our children (by not doing what my particular advocacy group wants)" reports out there, nobody would ever graduate. They'd be so busy taking classes on everything under the sun that there would be no way to satisfy all of the requirements in a remotely reasonable amount of time. Additionally, so many of the what-my-particular-advocacy-group-wants things are in direct conflict with each other that trying to teach all of them would do nothing but cause confusion.

And before anyone says "but this came out of a university," so do reports from the http://www.hoover.org/">Hoover Institution. Not all university-generated reports are created equal. I think these guys have good intentions, mind you.

Yes. The level of civics knowledge in undergrads, if the students I get are any indicator, is deplorable, if those test scores are in fact representative. I'd be interested to see their sampling frame, including how participants were recruited (incentives? was the sampling random? was the phrase "take this fun quiz" involved, meaning the students would have had a lower level of engagement with the material?)