(From forbes.com)
By Thomas K. Lindsay
For roughly the past fifty years, higher education reformers have been warning about the decline in civic education in this country. National polling consistently shows that Americans, even college graduates, are growing increasingly civically illiterate. A recent survey found that only 36% of respondents can identify the three branches of American government. A mere 27% know that it takes a two-thirds majority of the House and Senate to override a presidential veto.
This civic illiteracy is not to be blamed on our students. Far from it. They study what they are tested on. Unfortunately, U.S. Department of Education statistics testify that, today, only one in three college students graduates having taken even one course in American Government. Why? Because a growing number of universities no longer require them to do so. Hence, our civic-knowledge deficit. CONTINUE READING HERE