Who the heck does not know hitler???

Alot of these kids just don't care or are lazy. If you don't have parents who care and push you to focus on your education then you won't. If it weren't for my parents I wouldn't be where I am today

I don't blame the students. It's No Child Left Behind and school systems. I think it's really telling that they all knew "I had a dream" - inner-city schools (at least in our city) push black history like none other. A month of that being immersed in every subject in every grade level. And that's great, don't get me wrong, but they need a strong foundation in every kind of history.

I think lazy students would be the outliers in this study; I bet the majority of those students graduated with good grades.

I said other. When I was in high school, I HATED history. All of the history teachers were hired to be coaches first, teachers second. Their passion was coaching, not teaching. I was a giant nerd and got As anyhow, but if you weren't striving to be valedictorian or something, there was no purpose in putting your nose "to the grindstone" in these classes b/c the teacher didn't care.

It wasn't until college that I realized history is a fun, interesting story. I blame the whole system for this: the emphasis on sports over academics, the school system for hiring coaches over teachers, and the funding system for our schools that keeps so many impassioned, intelligent folks from wanting to be teachers or that keeps the school system from being able to afford the good teachers there are.

I would be interested to see a similar study done before No Child Left Behind was passed. I'm guessing the results would be somewhat similar. As far as I know, most states require students to pass exams in every major subject before graduating; it's just not nationalized.

I'm sorry, I had to pick the last option because it cracked me up.

Seriously--I was just having a discussion with a friend on here, because we're both originally from other countries with a much stronger focus on education than here. I think it's hard to find one specific reason American kids tend to be uneducated, but the overarching problem is that our society just really does not esteem intelligence or education much. Look at what's held up in pop culture as admirable, for instance: smarts and learning don't have much to do with it. And it's not just about this generation (although it does seem to be getting worse).

If our society truly valued education, then the problems mandy_frost pointed out wouldn't exist; if our society valued education, then parents in general would make more of an effort to emphasize that to their kids; and if our society valued education, kids themselves would be more inclined to make the effort. But, sadly, that's not the case. What's "valued" here are test scores, not true learning. Education here is a business.

i wish i had a free education. do you know how hard it is to make an african parent understand that a C is not a fail? My parents expect me to tell them my results of all my finals and for them to be in the high 80s or int he 90s and to see my current standing and my GPA. all my academic letters get sent to to them and they open them too so i have no choice but to do well in every single subject i take. i took physics and chemistry in high school but now that i'm doing liberal arts courses at university i thank god everyday that i had to do histroy, literature, cookery in high school.

Exactly, nya!

I once had to explain to my Asian parents why my B was not an A. Needless to say, my explanation did not prevent me from getting into trouble.

Nya and Jude, I think it also depends on the specific parents. I am of German/Polish/Hungarian/Russian descent, but my family (on both sides) has been in the U.S. for at least 125 years. And my parents were very strict with me about my grades. Even when I was in college, they always wanted to see my grades and make sure they were up to par. Since they paid my way through college, I think they had every right to. I do agree, though, that it is sad that parents like mine are the exception in the U.S. and not the norm.

Well I think education everywhere is a business. I doubt if Chinese kid's test score sank that they would be getting more time off.

Its important to have a measuring stick by which to rate whether our teachers techniques are working. I don't teach, so I don't know if No Child works or not. But I think the concept is important and valid.

The problem is def. society. We get a free ride in this country for the most part. Pillars of Asian cultures such as integrity and character don't get taught much here, unless in home and it seems like pretty much nothing gets taught there anymore.

However, this doesn't surprise me because we live in a country now that really has no regard for fact. We only seem to value opinion. And since we can't judge someone on their opinion, then why should they bother to back it up with fact? This rings true in politics mainly. A lot of these kids role models would be able to tell you what they think without bothering to tell you why they think it or back it up with fact, so why should the kids bother learning about history to back up their opinions?

lilkimbo i'm hungarian too, rock on!

I saw this on the news yesterday evening. I think that testing statistically is not the best way to determine these things. Some children are just not good test takers. Also intellect is not always praised or encouraged in adolescents by their peers and families. Yes, Teachers encourage it but sometimes its just not enough .. and even at times the educators themselves are lacking ... come on how many bad teachers have we all had???.surely at least one. I excel in my studies now and but its because of hard work and dedication principals that many young children are not forced into. Its hard to really point the blame because in a lot of instances the families themselves are not that educated for various reasons. We definitely need more focus on education in this country, we need more money dipped into our programs instead funding a billion dollar war.

I would say other b/c honestly, it is a combo of so many different factors. N.C.L.B. is one, but cannot not explain while even with an emphasis on the three "r's", we lag behind so many other countries in those subjects as well.

I agree with Jude C and nya in regards to cultural influences and lack of parental involvement. Even though I have lived in America my whole life, my educational experiance was MUCH different than a lot of my friends until I went to a private h.s. My mom and my step dad are educators and very much over-acheiving intellectuals and coming home with any thing below a B+ was not going to cut it.

Schools just do not have parents involved like they should be. Example, when I called my daughter out sick, the admin thanked me like I was doing the Lord's work or something. It is sad to know that average parent cannot even be botherred to call the school when their kid can not show up, just sad.

I can tell you that as a student that its not no child left behind, its the lack of importance education has in our society, and laziness. Half the kids in my class laugh it off if they fail a test, ad a larger percentage think they they will become singers, or actors, or basketball players, and believe that this knowledge is not important. Also most kids my age don't even know what they want to be when they are older so they makes them less motivated

so don't blame bush for lazy kids

lol Jude. The worst was the end of the term, we had 3 of them in a school year when my dad would come get me from my boarding school to go home. he would put my bags and trunk into the trunk of his car, go to the office to sign me out come back, hug me and then hold his hand out for my school report lol!! if my results were mostly Bs that would be a very long 3 hour drive back home. if i had As i would get whatever my heart desired. i feel like back home we have a very strong emphasis on sports as well but you still have to do well in school as well, at my school you had to do a sport and a club activity as well like being a librarian, debate, interact, toastmasters, chess and bridge.

I wonder what happens when you compare children in the US from Public School verse children in Private School.

M3 - I don't know if that makes a difference. Its def. worth looking at. But I grew up in NY and at the end of HS you had to take a multitude of state exams to graduate. The private school kids in my town never did better than us.

As I remember it, the only thing the private school kids had over us was better drugs. haha! Of course, this was just a run of the mill Catholic private school, not like a Philips Exeter or anything.

That would be interesting, mymellowman. It's difficult to lump all public schools together, though, as each one is so different. I remember when I was choosing which high school to attend (my parents let me choose between public and private). My parents and I researched all of the alternatives and I choose public high school. The public high school in my area consistently performed above state averages on nearly every test available, both academic and otherwise. When compared to the private schools in my area, the public high school performed better than the schools that were tested, as well. However, had I lived 30 miles away in the city of Cleveland, the results would have been quite different.

Exactly 3M! I went to Private School from Kindergarten-7th Grade and I noticed that alot of the kids in public school didn't care about school or their grades. Personally for me my parents were superstrict about my grades but then again I'm asian. Education is pounded in our heads at an early age

I was typing at the same time as you, cabaker!

But, also our school system is such a joke. alot of teachers are not teaching what they should be teaching and funding for our schools are getting cut every year

I think we have a different idea of the schools' mission than they do. I do the best I can to keep my teenagers on track, but:
1) Students are not organized by ability. This means they can only move at the pace of the one slowest person in the class.
2) The schools do not remove disruptive students. Violent ones are just moved to other schools in the district. (My DD was the victim of an attempted robbery.)
3) There's little or no articulation from year to year. Just this week my DD told me they have gone over the same few bits of history since middle school, and from what I've seen, it has not been in depth.
4) The teachers' rule of the classroom is sacred. There is little oversight and less imposition of standards. I once complained about a math teacher, and he implicitly encouraged the class to find out who complained and retaliate against the student.
5) Many teachers seem to feel that their job is to impart political correctness, not information. My ROTC son is consistently disrespected and shortchanged for his views by his English teacher. (This same teacher uses very sexually explicit materials in the classroom for grades 9 - 12, and has apparently never been corrected, even when he was once reported.)
6) If a parent reports a problem, the teacher denies it, and there is no resolution.

...and my kids are in a gifted / high achieving magnet school (since third and second grade, respectively).

blaming the child certainly isn't viewing things sociologically, which i think one needs to do here.

re: the columbus date: maybe that popular song has gone out of popular use in schools?

memorization of dates and such doesn't really teach anyone about the LESSONS of history. i think the way things are taught only work with one type of learning. i don't remember dates, period, but then i am very terrible with math so numbers mean nothing to me. i think more kids need creative outlets for their energy, and this is seriously lacking in schools.

I don't think you can point your finger at any one of these things. Honestly, I'm sure it's a combination of everything. The parents are at fault, the kids are at fault, the administration is at fault.

And this may cause some debate, but I really don't know how important it is to have exact answers to these questions.

Isn't it more important to know what the Civil War was about, than it is to know the exact dates it occurred?

As for the Hitler question, kids were given "Germany's Chancellor" or "Germany's Kaiser" during WWII. And since Chancellor is the right answer, anyone who said Kaiser was marked wrong.

What I would ask instead is this... Is this survey REALLY an example of what our kids should be learning, and was this test given in a way as to accurately gauge that? I think that's an important question in and of itself.

Lainetm, I could not agree more with you on point #1! I have a few friends who are teachers and they each have people at their schools (and parents) who are pushing to get rid of talented and gifted programs because they "divide students." This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard! I think it's best to divide students according to ability level so each student can learn at the best pace for him/her!

Lain - I agree with you wholeheartedly.

And popgoestheworld, I wondered the same thing about the Civil War question. Was the question about the exact dates or the general time period? I mean, students shouldn't think the Civil War occurred in 1970, but knowing exact dates is less important than understanding the motivations behind the war and the lessons learned from it.

Well first and foremost, federal involvement is Unconstitutional. (sorry Nyara )

Second, we don't push for being exceptional anymore. We settle for mediocrity. We are more focused on things being "fair" and "fun" then pushing for the best from our students. It is not the schools job to create a persons character, it is their job to educate. We have become more focused on how things are taught then what is taught to our students.

Third: I have a whole liberal controlling the educational system conspiracy theory that I have stated before. The liberals have made our educational so Politically correct that we no long teach true history. People need to realize that history is NOT PC. It is absolutely AMAZING what they neglect to teach students about history. As a reference look at how a child is taught the New Deal program. Again, Liberal propaganda.

Fourth: Parents just don't care anymore. Mainly because they are from the same PC crap education that their children are being taught.

MMM, I wonder the same thing.

lol cine!!! private or public there are a lot of apathetic children in this world and seeing idiots like paris hilton who glorify being a moron isn't going to help them either. today sex is what sells and gets you forward not being knowledgeable and informed

It has very little to do with the children and a whole lot to do with NCLB and the school system..it also has little to do with the teachers

The only reason a child is at fault is if they legitimately just dont want to learn or are lazy but in reality there are so many other factors involved and the children are only about %10 of the problem

I hate it when people blame the teachers when in reality, the teachers are TOLD what to do because of NCLB so if they dont meet the criteria stated in NCLB they get in trouble.

In my collge history class i often am amazed at how much stuff i didnt learn in high school history because the teachers had to comply with NCLB and now i understand how much of a negative impact it has made on the youth of america..very sad

which is why i am in school to become a history teacher! lol

How ironic, people are blaming the students. Are they also to blame for tax-specific districting that is based on class? School segregation that is more prevalent now than before Brown v. Board? Low teachers salaries that send good teachers to wealthier schools where they can be paid better? Pay-raises for administrators who have top standardized test scores, so they get rid of recess and have test-intensive curriculums? I didn't realize children were so in control of the school system - perhaps if all our children had equal resources, equally gifted teachers, and were not pushed to take tests so they could learn some COGNITIVE THINKING, we might see children and parents caring more. But no - we judge the abilities of our children based on what bubble they fill out on a test. Barely literate kids are churned our of our schools on an assembly line while we point the fingers at them and say they're not devoted enough to learn. Perhaps we're not devoted enough to give them the proper environments to learn in. I don't have kids, but I vote every year to raise the school budget in my working-class, minority-rich neighborhood because if I can't contribute to kids learning, then I only contribute to future drug users, criminals, and a worse off place to live.

Oh and for the record, I JUST learned WHY were went to civil war in the first place...the real reason and i'm a freshman in college. Politically correctness definitely plays a role in it. I feel like ive missed out on so much wonderful information about our nations history because of the things that were not taught when i was in high school and middle school...i blame the state and federal govenment trying to control education, not the teachers or the students or the parents.

Kathleen, out of curiosity what were you taught in high school compared to what you learned in College?

I JUST got into an argument with someone over the Civil War.

Also, even in very good schools, kids don't learn basic things - like Abe Lincoln did not free any slaves in the Union when he drafted the Emancipation Proclomation, and slaves in the South had to free themselves afterwards anyway. I have a million more examples of things people don't learn about - race and class being one of the constant themes in what is not taught - if anyone is interested, just PM me. It's a joke how we teach our history - I'll agree with you cine, it is overly PC, but ironically so as to maintain Eurocentrism.

I learned in high school that it was all about the slaves freedom and that we needed to stand up for the mlack slaves rights...and i just learned a few weeks ago in my History from 1860-present class that we went to war because of the economy and not just because of slaves. For example, business owners and farmers had slaves to work on a plantation and knew they didnt have to pay them which made them more money kind of thing...i didnt know that until now

I can almost pre-empt this... we went into the Civil War because of states rights... to have slaves. See: 1850 Compromise, Bloody Kansas, etc. The industrializing North wanted the South's cotton, but the South received better business from Britain, so they resisted this. As a result, Lincoln and co. tried to push imposing higher import/export taxes on the South - his goals included internal improvements, National Bank (which slave holders did not need because they did not need $$to pay their workers, who were slaves), and the Homestead Act, which the South objected to because they wanted to expand slavery in the West, not give land cheaply to competitors. Lincoln was not concerned with the issue of slavery besides the fact that it was dividing the Union - in essence, the CW was a war over slavery, but not over the freeing of slaves. After the South secedes, all those goals Lincoln had succeeded, because the significant amount of Southern political power was gone.

Also, Southern paranoia over the recent John Brown escapade was partly to blame - Lincoln looked EXACTLY like John Brown, and most white Southerners assumed he was an abolitionist - amusingly, very far from the truth, but a detriment to their perception of him nonetheless.

Historians constantly attempt to assure people the war was over slavery, but PC schools and history departments teach that it was over politics - yes, both are true, but it was the politics of slavery, which lie upon the politics of economy, that led to the tensions that sparked the Civil War.

i have a question, are children separated according to how academically gifted they are in american schools? We had six classes per grade the top 3 classes were for the academically gifted with the top class being full of of the whiz kids and the bottom 3 were for those who struggled. we learnt the same basic core subjects but the top 3 classes had pyhsics and chemistry as options and in certain subjects like math the top 3 classes would have to do things like vectors, university level algebra etc. While the bottom 3 classes took courses that were less challenging and generally geared towards the arts.

Nyaradzom, when I was in school, classes were separated. (I graduated from high school in 2001.) Some students were in all advanced classes, some took some advance and some not advanced, some were on the "college prep" or middle-of-the-road course, and some took remedial work. Some are advocating a move away from this, though, which I find ridiculous.

Nya, our schools typically work like this:

There are the regular classes which are just like general normal classes and then you have the honors classes which are more challenging and then you can take AP or IB classes which are the most challenging and are usually equivalent to a college general education course (which explaisn why AP and IB classes usually transfer into college credits)

BUT the children have the choice to take any of these classes if they wish to

There are gifted schools which usually have a program you have to test into and be accepted into. The course work is usually the equivalent of regular schools honors and AP courses except they dont have the general classes at all they only offer the excelerated learning type classes

Nyara in some schools they have the gifted program, then the "regular" kids, then the remedial class. But most of the remedial kids do not have a lower intelligence, they misbehave, but again that goes back to parents, and schools losing the power to discipline the children.

I am very torn about a class system in our schools. I feel that most kids are of equal intelligence they just may learn differently then other children. This in turn frustrates them, and they shut down. But I do feel that if a student is disrupting the class then it is unfair to the rest of the students.

On the Civil War topic, that is what we fought about. He kept saying it was about freeing the slaves, and I kept on saying that the civil war was NOT just about slaves. Anyway, I realized about a year ago that I did not know very much about the civil war and have recently started to do my own independent study on the topic, and I cannot believe how much my high schools and colleges left out.

that's very silly lilkim. i feel like separation allows the kids to get the attention they all deserve.

As a future history teacher currently in training I see stats like this everyday. It is the school systems fault that students are not learning, through credentials or motivation. It is a teacher's job to inspire a student to learn and if the student fails the teacher is to blame. Every child can learn but only when given the right support and resources. Very sad. IMO.

Anyways this is the way I look at it:

"Fewer than half knew when the Civil War was fought." - I can agree with this because the date was not as important as the message, basically if you knew ABOUT when the civil war happened and ABOUT what happened, you were good to go

"25 percent said Columbus sailed to the New World some time after 1750, not in 1492." - Hmmm they must have stopped teaching that old saying "Columbus sailed the Ocean blue, in Fourteen Hundred and Ninety Two" Thats how i always remember it and i never forgot

"Only 75 percent were able to name Hitler as Germany's leader in World War II." - This also must be a new things because i remember going 3 research papers and spending at least 4 months talking about WWII and Hitler and how horrible all of it was"

"Good news! 97 percent were able to identify Martin Luther King, Jr. as the man who said, "I have a dream." - Doesn't surprise me, we spent nearly all of the second semester talking about MLK jr. in high school.

Actually, cine, you're misinterpreting the economic aspect of the CW to mean it wasn't JUST about slaves- it was JUST about slaves... the economics surrounding the slave production in the South and the reasons the North wanted to deal with it.

There tends to be three narratives throughout an American lifetime: high school - PC bullsh**, college history major - semi-PC Eurocentric bullsh**, Doctoral studies - politically incorrect accurate and 7-years worth of private research.

I'm happy to share information I have through PM if you're interested, cine. If you're a history buff, you'll probably be interested!

I love history and I have since I was little. I was reading my Dad's books in high school. The problem is the way it's taught. For all my love of history, the way it's taught in high school is BORING! No wonder they don't learn anything. It's basically a procession of this happened and then this happened and then this happened with no explanation of why we're learning about it. From my high school US History class I learned more about Prince Henry the Navigator (an important historical figure, but not for a high school class) than I learned about Vietnam! I tried to get everything I could out of it, but when there's not much to get in the first place it makes it difficult.

I get what you are saying mina, but he was saying, the old "the North loved blacks, the south hated them. The north ONLY cared about slavery and the opression and tortured that occured." And I kept on trying to explain to him it is not that simple. But as I said, I just started recently to REALLY learn about the civil war, so I am not as factually based as you.

If you have any good books to suggest I am open to them.

Oh, in that case you are absolutely right - the key thing to remember about the Civil War is that it was about slavery, but not about the slaves. When Emancipation came around, it was purely a political manuever- the North had little to gain from ending slavery, but also had little to gain from keeping it. The majority of Northerners did NOT want to free slaves - Lincoln himself only "freed" them (the Proclamation only freed slaves in the South, who were not under Northern jurisdiction at the time, NOT in the Union - and slaves in both regions ended up having to free themselves anyway) because he wanted to send them to Africa. In fact, Lincoln experimentally paid voyage for 300 slaves to Nova Scotia after the Proclamation, where they all starved to death.

The ONLY reason Lincoln issue the Proclamation was because the South declared during the war, "Slavery or Death!"

But, it is still important to note that the war began PURELY because the economic issues and states rights that caused tension were because of the defense of the existence of slavery - neither side wanted to free them, but wanted their own way in regards to industry WITH slavery intact. I'll send you a PM with some books you might be interested in, cine.

Thanks mina, I am a bookaholic.

A college professor defined what caused the civil war in a way that encompasses many different aspects of the debate. Basically, both sides felt like they were tied to a system that did not support their interests. I find it funny that Lincoln wanted to amend the constitution so that slavery could not be abolished in the states that already had it. This wasn't good enough, so instead that amend abolished slavery everywhere.

I like your definition too, Mina...the Civil War is that it was about slavery, but not about the slaves. I think that sums it up pretty well too.

Other - surveys are so screwed up and their results are easily manipulated to show whatever you want.

Have you ever tried to talk to a 17 year old? 1,000 of those 1,200 kids that they called were probably either stoned or half-asleep.