Civic education provides Americans with the information we need to become well-informed citizens. But have you ever wondered what this includes?
Based on this list, how would you grade your civic knowledge? If you don’t know everything listed here, don’t worry. You’re not alone. Most Americans have plenty of room for improvement when it comes to civic knowledge. That’s why I am so passionate about civic education.
Before we can help Americans improve their civic knowledge, we need to assess how much they already know. Over the years, several universities and nonprofit organizations have conducted research attempting to do just that. We will discuss several of them here, beginning with the most comprehensive and complete example.
What Americans Know About Politics and Why It Matters
A 1996 book called What Americans Know About Politics and Why It Matters included one of the most comprehensive studies of American civic knowledge ever conducted. The authors reviewed more than fifty years of survey data from the American National Election Studies, the Roper Center, and surveys they conducted themselves between 1989 and 1992. The data included more than two thousand questions about political institutions, political processes, political leaders, political parties, and domestic and foreign policy. The authors summarized their findings as follows:
"Only 13 percent of the nearly 2,000 political questions examined could be answered correctly by 75 percent or more of those asked, and only 41 percent could be answered correctly by more than half the public. Many of the facts known by relatively small percentages of the public seem critical to understanding--let alone effective acting in--the political world…"
Despite significant advances in education and technology over the past few decades, average levels of civic knowledge among the American people have remained stubbornly low. This seems counterintuitive, but it makes some sense in light of the study’s findings about the distribution of civic knowledge in America.
We’ve been thinking about the American people as a monolith, but this is not the case. American voters have varying levels of civic knowledge that evolve from their unique life experiences. The authors of this book argue that Americans who are better informed tend to get better results from their government interactions and political participation. The poorly informed, on the other hand, rarely get the outcomes they want, which leaves them feeling powerless, confused, and angry. In practical terms, this means that civic knowledge is just another resource separating the haves in our society from the have-nots.
Nearly three decades after the publication of What Americans Know About Politics and Why It Matters, we have no indication that civic knowledge levels among average Americans have improved.
NAEP
The National Assessment of Educational Progress or NAEP is often called “the nation’s report card” because it provides an objective measurement of student achievement across the nation in various subject areas at various grade levels.
According to its website, "NAEP has provided meaningful results to improve education policy and practice since 1969. Results are available for the nation, states, and 27 urban districts. NAEP is a congressionally mandated program that is overseen and administered by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), within the U.S. Department of Education and the Institute of Education Sciences. The National Assessment Governing Board, an independent body appointed by the Secretary of Education, sets NAEP policy."
NAEP periodically administers its assessments to a nationally representative sample of 4th, 8th, and 12th grade students. The assessments cover a wide range of subject areas, including math, reading, science, geography, history, and of course, civics. The most recent civics assessment was given to eighth graders in 2022. However, our interest here is in older students who are closer to voting age, so we will focus our attention on the most recent 12th grade civics assessment in 2010.
NAEP divides student scores on their assessments into four achievement levels: Advanced scores mean that students have mastered the subject. Proficient scores mean that students have reached a set standard of knowledge about the subject. Basic scores mean that students have some knowledge of the subject, but they still have a lot to learn. Below basic scores mean that students have very little or no knowledge of the subject.
In order to reach the proficient achievement level on the civics assessment, NAEP says that twelfth grade students must know how to do the following:
The results of the 2010 NAEP civics assessment results were pretty concerning:
- Only 24% of high school seniors were proficient.
- In fact, more students scored below basic (36%) than proficient. Sadly, these statistics have remained remarkably stable over time.
- In 2006, 27% of high school seniors were proficient and 34% scored below basic.
- In 1998, the numbers were 26% and 35%, respectively.
These results are reinforced by decades of nationally representative survey research and recent political events, revealing just how low civic knowledge levels are among average Americans. Despite the consistency of its results, we have to remember that NAEP assessments are only given to high school seniors. This tells us a lot about how much young Americans know about government and politics, but we should be careful with generalizing these results to the American people at large.
NAEP’s results provide us with valuable information to consider, but let’s examine a few more sources for a more well-rounded picture of how much Americans know.
Annenberg Public Policy Center
American Bar Association
There’s no sugar-coating it, these statistics are alarming; but can things really be as bad as they seem?
Join the Civics for All community to learn the answer to this question. We'll discuss how things got this way, what happened to civic education, and what we can do about it moving forward in future posts. Remember, civic education helps everyone! It's time to think outside of the classroom!
