Pundits carp about the sour tone of this election year, but what if the fault lies less in our politicians than in our schools? Thomas Jefferson wrote “if a nation expects to be ignorant and free … it expects what never was and never will be.” If Jeff erson is right, then American freedom is endangered by civic ignorance.
On Sept. 10, Arkansas Tech Political Science Professor Mike Rogers, my colleague Sandra Stotsky and a team of other educators from around the state testifi ed before the state Legislature on the need for academically stronger civic education, and on how to meet that need. It’s about time.
Despite having more years of education than ever before, evidence shows that many Americans do not know enough to make rational decisions about what policies and candidatesto choose. This lack of knowledge forces politicians to run simplistic campaigns to appeal to the voters we educators send them.
Many remark on the fi fth of Americans who believe their president is Muslim (not that it should matter).
That’s small potatoes. As Jodi Dean shows in “Aliens in America,” roughly half of U.S. citizens think their government is hiding space aliens. As one who has served in government, I find it depressing so many Americans think government so malicious as to imprison innocent aliens,and oddly thrilling anyone thinks we civil servants are competent enough to run alien prisons and keep them secret.
Equally depressing, a 2006 survey found 36 percent of respondents agreeing it is “very likely” or “somewhat likely” the government either participated in the 9/11 attacks or took no action to stop them, as a pretext to go to war. A series of New York Times and CBS polls found a third of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein planned 9/11. Seemingly, slightly more Americans blame their own government than the murderous regime of Saddam Hussein for 9/11.
This may comfort al-Qaeda supporters, but should not cheer anyone else. (For the record, neither former President George Bush nor Saddam did 9/11.)
Misconceptions don’t end with foreign threats.
No area is more central to government than taxes andspending. Unfortunately, Democratic and Republican voters have contrary and equally fantastic beliefs about where public money goes, making it politically impossible to close our enormous structural budget defi cits.
As Donald Kettl points out, voters would like to cut foreign aid to 10 percent of the U.S. budget, unaware it is already under 1 percent.
As John Pitney and Joseph Bessette detail in their excellent American Government textbook, Republican voters are particularly likely to overestimate foreign aid. Democrats hugely underestimate federal aid to the poor and believe that the tax system favors the rich, when in fact “the wealthy bear most of the tax burden and pay higher effective rates.” For their part, libertarian-leaning voters oppose government spending for “the NAFTASuperhighway System” - which does not even exist.
As Gregg Easterbrook shows in “The Progress Paradox,” Americans feel subjective unease in the face of objective progress on pollution, crime and health.
Americans live longer, in far cleaner environments, with more access to more luxury goods. Yet voters do not comprehend their good fortune.
Even on education, the picture is not so much negative as mixed to positive. Contrary to public opinion, the National Assessment of Education Progress tests show students doing a bit better at reading and math.
At the same time, even as the public fears public schools struggle to survive budget cuts, school spending steadily rose until 2010 and is roughly five times higher than the average voter estimates, as is chronicled in Frederick Hess and Eric Obserg’s “Stretching theSchool Dollar.”
In “The Dumbest Generation,” Emory Professor Mark Bauerlein shows young Americans have more years of schooling and more disposable income. They also have high selfesteem: they think they know a lot. It’s time for our policy-makers and educators to focus less on self-esteem and more on conveying the facts future voters need. We need to revamp our civic education because we have come too far to forget who we are. Our very democracy depends on it.
ROBERT MARANTO IS THE 21ST CENTURY CHAIR IN LEADERSHIP AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS, AND HAS AUTHORED NUMEROUS BOOKS INCLUDING ABOUT PRESIDENT OBAMA AND EDUCATION REFORM.
THIS ARTICLE SUMMARIZES THE AUTHOR’S ARTICLE IN THE MIDSOUTH POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW SPECIAL ISSUE ON CIVIC EDUCATION IN ARKANSAS.
Opinion, Pages 11 on 09/23/2012