PRESIDENT FRANKLIN WOULD BE ASHAMED :

Seniors Don't Have Basic Grasp of History (Sue Pleming, May 9, 2002, Reuters)

More than half of America's high school seniors do not have even the most basic grasp of U.S. history, showing no improvement in a nationwide test since 1994, the Education Department said on Thursday.

The department's national history "report card" measured the performance in 2001 of fourth, eighth and 12th graders in history, an important part of U.S. citizenship.

In grade 12, the final year of school, only 43 percent of students had a basic or proficient knowledge of American history, a figure unchanged from same tests last done in 1994.

There's nothing more amusing, to a crusty cultural conservative anyway, than listening to the Fortuynauts among us complain about how we can't assimilate immigrants into our culture when the far greater problem is that we "natives" are destroying that culture ourselves. As Montesquieu said, virtue in a Republic is a very simple thing; it is love of one's country; and to inspire it ought to be the principal business of education. We are failing miserably in this most basic republican task. Posted by Orrin Judd at May 9, 2002 11:39 AM