Sound Politics Public Blog: Are Americans Really Informed Enough to Even Cast Reasoned Ballots?

November 21, 2008

Are Americans Really Informed Enough to Even Cast Reasoned Ballots?

The Intercollegiate Studies Institute (IGI) released results of a 118-question survey taken of 2,508 respondents, the purpose of which was to determine what the level of civic knowledge was among American adults. The respondents were selected to form a cross-section of American society and the results were shocking.

You can take a portion of the test (the 33-question subset dealing only with civic knowledge) and see how you stack up. I was dissatisfied with my 84.85% (a B by most collegiate standards), but took some solace in knowing that was only five incorrect answers and seven percentage points above average. Room for improvement, to be certain.

Post your own scores as comments to this post, anonymously if you must. I think a robust conversation about this survey and its implications is essential.

What this should show us is that we need to take a hard look in the mirror, be honest with ourselves and dedicate our nation to reviving an interest in being education. Talking about making education a national or local priority is not equivalent to challenging our schools to make curriculum adjustments to educate.

What is perhaps most disturbing is that the researchers did not find that any group (as an aggregate) did well. Ivy League educated, elected government officials, rich, poor, churched, unchurched, conservative, liberal, Republican, Democrat... all were equally uninformed.

The summarized findings of the test were, as excerpted from the IGI site:

1) Americans Fail the Test of Civic Literacy
Of the 2,508 Americans taking ISI's civic literacy test, 71% fail. Nationwide, the average score on the test is only 49%. The vast majority cannot recognize the language of Lincoln's famous speech.
2) American Agree: Colleges Should Teach America's Heritage
We believe this whether we are young or old, rich or poor, liberal or conservative. We believe this whether we are male or female; black, white, or Hispanic. We believe this whether we have served in the military or not, and whether we attend church regularly or seldom.
3) College Adds Little to Civic Knowledge
The average score on the American civic literacy exam for those who ended their formal education with a bachelor's degree is 57%, or an "F." That is only 13 percentage points higher than the average score earned by those who hold high school, but not college, diplomas.
4) Television--Including TV News--Dumbs America Down
The multiple-regression analysis indicated that a person's test score drops in proportion to the time he or she spends using certain types of passive electronic media. Talking on the phone, watching owned or rented movies, and even monitoring TV news broadcasts and documentaries diminishes a respondent's civic literacy
5) What College Graduates Don't Know About America
Overall, the survey shows that bachelor's-degree holders tend to know twentieth-century American history better than free-market economics and themes that pre-date the twentieth century, especially constitutional principles and the founding and Civil War eras.

The IGI is a non-profit, non-partisan group with a mission to "further in successive generations of American college youth a better understanding of the economic, political, and ethical values that sustain a free and humane society".

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Cross-posted at Unequal Time http://unequal-time.blogspot.com

Posted by thesenator2012 at November 21, 2008 12:39 PM | Email This

Comments

1. I firmly believe we can tie this to the election of baby bear-y especially given the proof of how uniformed his supporters were both BEFORE and AFTER they voted for him.

Do yourself and America a favor. Stay in or go back to school.

It is a defining indicator that the embarrassing, self inflicted dumbing down of America is all but complete when people vote against their own self-interest.

Posted by: Ragnar Danneskjold on November 21, 2008 02:28 PM

2. I wish I could say that the results of the survey showed that lack of knowledge on civics issues was confined to just liberals and Democrats. It would make a great bumper sticker. But the survey actually found that conservatives scored lower-on average-than liberals. I think we should attack the problem of lack of education on a non-partisan basis and fix the country. Smarter citizens-whether they are liberal or conservative-make America a better place.

Posted by: Bryan Myrick (thesenator2012) on November 22, 2008 09:29 AM

3. This test is fine, but I don't think that it's a great idea to measure capacity in civics with a trivia exam. (Whether it has a right-wing bias like this, or otherwise.) The facts that FDR threatened to stack the Supreme Court and that the Lincoln-Douglas debates were about slavery are interesting from a historical perspective, but do they really evaluate people's *competence* with exercising their rights in a democratic society?

@1: Eighty-nine percent. Uneducated? (And I missed #6 because I read it wrong... no excuse, of course.)

And that Zogby poll has been widely discredited... it's the absolute worst example of biased polling ever, and it is laughable that it's being paraded around as "proof" of anything but the idiocy of the partisan hack that commissioned it.

Posted by: demo kid on November 22, 2008 10:21 AM

4. So what if it's been discretited?

The fact remains FROM THE MOUTHS OF THE RESPONDENTS, that they had no clue. You should be just as outaged about just one uniformed idiot voting as thousands.

Posted by: Ragnar Danneskjold on November 22, 2008 10:32 AM

5. demo kid @3: I agree that trivia does not test the ability to use reason and logic to make decisions that affect everyone. However, the knowledge the quiz tests is not trivial. These ideas and factoids are often still used to support one point of view or another, all of it is a foundation, or context, that a person needs to fully comprehend when using history as a guide. If all anyone ever knew about Hitler was that he got Germany's economy on track, Hitler would be lionized. But because we can examine the details of his method and his purpose, we can have a better understanding of why his "way" is wrong for societies. That is exxagerated example, used to underscore a point. Context is everything and context requires people to seek out and hold on to objective information about what has happened.

Posted by: Bryan Myrick (thesenator2012) on November 22, 2008 10:46 AM

6. @4: The fact remains that Ziegler's survey is not a statistically valid analysis, and the conclusions are useless. You can't wrangle it to mean something that it doesn't.

Why is it invalid? Two reasons.

First, the questions are NOT equivalent. Just compare them and see. McCain gets a question about his houses, and Palin gets a question about "seeing Alaska from her house" (which is technically wrong). On the other hand, Biden gets a question about something that he did in the 1980s that was NOT raised by the McCain campaign, and the whole Jack Ryan debacle in Illinois wasn't raised either. If these questions were even, where was the question about Reverend Wright or negotiating with Iran? Or about Obama being a Muslim? And what about the positive questions?

Second, you have no idea what the effect of political persuasion or voting intention was on these questions. All you are doing is looking at a (probably biased) draw from self-identified Obama supporters. How does this compare to the population as a whole? Are Obama supporters more or less informed that McCain supporters? Ziegler's claim that Obama supporters can just commission a separate study is just plain lazy, especially since there is no guarantee that the same standards would be applied to sampling.

@5: I think that you're right in that context is certainly important, although your point about Hitler is a little extreme. However, again, some of these questions are more history and economics than civics (and most have a strong right-wing bent at that). The question about Lincoln and Douglas, for example, does little to tell me about how the government currently operates.

Generally speaking, I would much rather that people know who to talk to about government actions they don't like, than whether slaves were originally considered to be two-fifths or three-fifths of a person. That kind of survey would be the most relevant. Asking who you should talk to about immigration policy, for example, is much more relevant than what is included in the preamble of the Declaration of Independence.

Posted by: demo kid on November 22, 2008 01:58 PM

7. demo kid @6: I admitted to the exaggeration of using Hitler as a hypothetical but it does not lose its proportional value as a means of making my larger point. Civics is an understanding of how government works. Did you look at the detailed results of the IGI study in terms of how many people could not correctly answer what the branches of the federal government are? I wouldn't let a mechanic work on my car if they didn't know where the parts were and how they function to make the whole machine run properly. We should demand of ourselves, and of our fellow citizens a basic level of knowledge.

As for your point about the appearance that the survey tips to the right, have you considered the questions seem that way because they are correcting myths that have been passed down by left-leaning educators? If FDR was more dictator than president, and his policies extended the Depression, rather than alleviating it, there is no conservative or liberal version of the truth. There is only truth.

I think you are coming dangerously close to conducting a thought experiment in order to conclude that knowing about history is not necessary to be an informed citizen. I heard a lot of poli sci majors who lacked life experience, but had fervent desires of impressing their profs, make similar arguments. Many mistakes made in the history of political decision-making have been made by a) looking at the facts and b) arriving at conclusions in ignorance of historical example. We have to understand history to make smart decisions. Human experience is one of trial and error; our entire biology is geared toward that mode of thinking. Therefore, it is important that we thoroughly understand what has actually happened in order to avoid mistakes we have already made. When public perception of the historical context has become an untrue myth or outright lie it endangers our ability to make sound choices.

I will try and come up with a more cohesive argument to support what I'm saying because I'm writing this on the fly.

I like your attitude about this though, and it's good to have a rational dialogue about these things. Thanks for taking the time to join in. You should wander over to my blog every so often. I would appreciate hearing from someone who isn't just singing the same song as everyone else.

Posted by: Bryan Myrick (thesenator2012) on November 22, 2008 05:03 PM

8. @7: A better point to make would probably be that it's important to understand *relevant* history. I absolutely agree that you need a proper context to understand how the government works. But to take your analogy with the car a little further, I would take my modern car to my mechanic even if he couldn't name all the parts in a DeLorean or a Studebaker. Not everyone should have complete command of all of American history to be a good citizen, but they should know how everything works today.

History *helps* in that, but it's not everything. As Mark Twain once said, history doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme.

Regarding the bias in the survey, I think that you can definitely draw that conclusion. Looking at the questions, they hit on a lot of major conservative themes: natural law, free market concepts, evolution versus creationism, abortion, and so forth. (I don't think that there's anything in the Constitution about "profit", for example.) It not *blatant*, but it is there. I'm not arguing anything about the truth of these statements since all of the answers to the questions are technically right; there wasn't a question in there about whether FDR extended the Depression. However, a group with a different bias would definitely include different questions.

Yes, it is important to have a rational dialogue! (And not to be called a socialist/communist/Marxist at the drop of a hat.) I'll definitely check out your blog. The whole reason why I post on here is so that I can sing a different song...

Posted by: demo kid on November 22, 2008 05:47 PM