Report: New Yorkers really don’t know much about history
Many New Yorkers are “seriously lacking” in basic knowledge about their government, politics and the U.S. Constitution, according to a survey released today by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School. At the same time, more than 80 percent of New Yorkers think citizens have to be knowledgeable about the constitution in order for democracy to work well. They admit they aren’t too familiar with the document—fewer than 20 percent of those surveyed said they are.
The Brennan Center polled more than 1,000 New Yorkers to develop “A Report Card on Civic Literacy.”
“We badly need to put civics education back at the top of the education agenda,” Eric Lane, constitutional law scholar and report co-author said in a statement. “Meaningful democracy requires civic literacy. And as it stands now, New Yorkers are woefully under-informed about some of the most basic government functions and Constitutional ideas.”
Meg Barnette, former chief operating officer of the Brennan Center, is the report’s other author. Lane is a senior fellow with the Brennan Center and a professor at Hofstra University School of Law.
These are some of the other findings in the report:
—Only 42 percent of New Yorkers know basic information about the three branches of government.
—Less than one-third know that one of the goals of the U.S. Constitution was to create a stronger federal government.
—Fifty-eight percent did not respond correctly when asked to name either of New York’s two U.S. senators.
—Seventy percent could identify the speaker of the House of Representatives from a list of options.
The report card notes that civic literacy has been declining across the country and state education policies have increasingly focused on improving performance in math and language arts. In New York, the state Board of Regents recently decided to drop 4th and 8th grade assessment tests for social studies.
The report urges Gov. Andrew Cuomo to “re-commit to a full civics education curriculum” in New York’s schools. The state should create a commission to develop strategic planning and foster innovation in civics education, it said.
These are the survey questions:
Civic Literacy Topline Results and Questions
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This is an indictment of our decrepit, union-controlled educational system. I’ll bet that a survey on basic economics would come out even worse. While the survey is most likely valid, beware of the Brennan Center for any proposed solutions. In the interest of full dislosure: the Brennan Center is a Leftist think tank and legal activist group, whose heaviest financial contributor is George Soros? Open Society Institute.
The Center pursues a wide range of goals drawn from the radical agenda of Sixties activism as well as from the program of Goerge Soros’ Open Society Institute. (Soros the international mischief-maker who was convicted by France’s highest court of insider trading and once tried to bankrupt the Bank of England) The Center generates scholarly studies, mounts media campaigns, files amicus briefs, gives pro bono support to activists, and litigates test cases in pursuit of radical “change.” It employs 35 full-time staff, including attorneys, social scientists, researchers, and publicists.
Brennan promotes massive government intervention in the economy to ensure a “living wage” to all Americans, whether or not they work, it works to grant voting rights to felons,
promotes measures that would bring law enforcement and criminal justice under the de facto control of local “community” activists, fights the cutback of state funding for avant-garde artists while pushing for government intervention to stifle politically conservative voices on the airwaves, and promotes electoral reforms whose practical effect would be to make voter fraud easier.
Between 1999 and 2004, George Soros’ Open Society Institute gave grants to the Brennan Center totaling $3,291,218.