This is a topic which gives me headaches, and has been giving me headaches ever since I first saw Jay Leno’s man on the street interviews with the Burbank elite (no pun intended). This is not a new problem.

Many Children Still Don’t Know Much About History
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/06/14/137174384/many-children-still-dont-know-much-about-history?sc=tw&ft=1&f=1001

The good news: "At all grades, the average U.S. history scores in 2010 were higher than the scores in 1994, and the score for eighth-graders was also higher than in 2006."

The bad news: "Less than one-quarter of students perform at or above the ‘proficient’ level in 2010."

That’s the word this morning from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, part of the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics.

Students are judged to have "basic" skills if they have "partial mastery of the knowledge and skills fundamental for proficient work at each grade."

They’re said to be "proficient" if they can boast "solid academic performance." A proficient fourth grader, for instance, would know that "canals increased trade among states."

U.S. Students Remain Poor at History, Tests Show
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/15/education/15history.html?_r=2

American students are less proficient in their nation’s history than in any other subject, according to results of a nationwide test released on Tuesday, with most fourth graders unable to say why Abraham Lincoln was an important figure and few high school seniors able to identify China as the North Korean ally that fought American troops during the Korean War.

Overall, 20 percent of fourth graders, 17 percent of eighth graders, and 12 percent of high school seniors demonstrated proficiency on the exam, the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Federal officials said they were encouraged by a slight increase in eighth-grade scores since the last history test, in 2006. But even those gains offered little to celebrate because, for example, fewer than a third of eighth graders could answer even a “seemingly easy question” asking them to identify an important advantage American forces had over the British during the Revolution, the government’s statement on the results said.

Students Stumble again on the Basics of History
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303714704576385370840592218.html

The news was even direr in high school, where 12% of 12th-graders were proficient, unchanged since 2006. More than half of all seniors posted scores at the lowest achievement level, "below basic." While the nation’s fourth- and eighth-graders have seen a slight uptick in scores since the exam was first administered in 1994, 12th-graders haven’t.

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