At a time when it feels like the fabric of the nation is pulling apart, news that the rising generation is lacking in knowledge of civics, history, and geography doesn’t inspire hope in restored unity. On the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 76% of eighth-graders scored below proficient in civics, about the same as when the test was administered in 2014. In US History, 85% scored below proficient, up from 82% in 2014. On the geography test, 75% of students scored below proficient, compared with 73% in 2014.
We might reasonably wonder how our national divides can be mended if some critical mass of the citizenry doesn’t share an understanding of the ideals and purposes that underlie our society, doesn’t know how our institutions work, isn’t familiar with the physical territory we call home — and doesn’t grasp how these things have served to hold us together as a people over time.
Perhaps then there is no greater urgency for education than in rededicating it to the vital work of transmitting the shared knowledge and values that, in our best moments, unify us as a nation.
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