75 Percent of Oklahoma Students Can't Name the First President

On a side note. Nationally only one quarter of high school graduates can locate three important countries. Great Britain, Iraq, and Afghanistan. They can't even point out on a map where we are fighting and locate our greatest ally.

I am a product of the Oklahoma public education system. If I had to choose the one thing that has held me back the most in life, it would definitely be the horrible education system in Oklahoma.

I vividly remember in 7th grade when students were asked what the national anthem was, about 1/5 actually knew it.

The only thing that saved me was the fact that I was inquisitive and read a lot of computer programming, physics, engineering, and science books outside of school.

I have accomplished a good deal so far in life, but if it hadn't been for the slow pace of schooling in Oklahoma, I do believe I would have done a lot more by now.

Oh shit! I was way off...just looked it up in my little bros text book...boy do i feel like a dildo

What is the purpose of education in a democratic society? To produce educated voters. Social Sciences need to be emphasized as the most important study to give ourselves a basic knowledge of our political systems and history. Thats not a partisan statement.

What follows is a partisan statement. Conservatism used to be about the educated. Republicans carried a majority of college educated voters or at least college educated whites for nearly three decades. That changed last year and the politics seem to have shifted from policy debates to debates about historical realities. There are things we teach in history books, things like McCarthyism, the Great Depression, Slavery, Reconstruction, Segregation, the scopes monkey trial. Things that we don't want to see repeated. That's half the point of teaching history to learn from our mistakes, so that we can perfect our union. Conservatism lately seems to be less about historical principle and serious academic thought than it is about historical revisionism and political expediency. Everything form Michelle Bachman stating all on her own that a house Unamerican Activities Comitee should be started to establish which house members held pro and anti America ideals, to Southern Governors and Senators bringing up States rights arguments in the health care debate despite their historical precedents in slavery, reconstruction, and segregation, to conservative economists debating the stimulus by defending the actions of Hoover and lambasting Roosevelt from the grave for being a socialist and even going so far as spreading a belief that Roosevelt caused the depression despite the fact he wasn't in office in 1929. Its despicable and its even dangerous. It is counterproductive to political dialogue and it is hurting our country.

I think that its conservatism rather than republicanism that has to fear better social studies classes. Republicans are great historical heroes. Two of them are carved into Mount Rushmore for cripesakes! Lincoln is often called the greatest president and the mantle of Lincoln is now claimed more by men like Obama than men like Mitt Romney of Mike Huckabee and righty so. Its likely a Roosevelt or Lincoln wouldn't be welcome in todays party. Or even an Eisenhower for that matter. His daughter supported Obama in the last election because he said he wouldn't feel welcome in todays party. Lincoln, Roosevelt, Eisenhower. These are great men! These are great republicans but their politics are almost besides the point it was their individual visions and leadership that pushed America forward. Conservatism is about keeping things the same. These men moved America forward with great achievements like the preservation of the Union in the civil war, the establishment of the F.D.A. and the National Park System, the Interstate Highway System and the cessation of hostilities on the Korean continent. The question is whether those achievements are going to be continually ignored by the party of today or seen as a means not only of electoral victory but of examples of true governorship and the constructive role the government is supposed to play. The people need not be taught to fear government, of for and by the people! That's a republican idea, republic is in the very name of the party and those are the words of its first standard bearer! The only way we will see self governance stamped out in this nation is if we let ourselves be governed by fear either of the minority or majority.

Until republicans are those type of republicans again I'm not supporting them and I think incidents like those shown in South Carolina and Oklahoma are showcasing republicanism in its modern form. Where people like representative Joe Wilson and Senator Jim Inhoffe can survive in a fact free environment. These are politicians for politics sake who say the right things emotionally to low information voters who are dedicated to wedge issues and often vote against their economic interests.

Who is...damn it....ummmmm....uhhh...i know he invented the phone and was a general in the thirty years war...Winston...that's it....Winston Churchill...he's on the 100 dollar bill...benjamins...short for winston...

While we are on this subject, has anyone seen Jay Leno when he asks questions of people testing their knowledge about geography or American history, most of those adults are just as bad as these Oklahoma students.

Its downright embarrassing.

Hey the Glenn Beck show does have a future!

Wow...

I wonder what the students' answer to that question was.
"Jesus."

I can't remember the source but I read a recent study about a survey taken of students across the country. The results were unbelievably bad. The average student had little knowledge of the most basic facts of science and non science. There appears to be an education crises in our country.

Why would dumb high school students in Oklahoma and Arizona cause worry about the intelligence of the entire nation? Oklahoma and Arizona have some of the worst education systems in the country, don't they?

Aside from that, only one thousand students were surveyed. My entire high school contained about 1500 students. How do we know this study isn't done in a particularly lower class area?

PS - I'm not trying to justify it, every American should know their basic history.

Oklahoma should be embarrassed.

(I hope they don't bring this test in Florida.) o_O

This is disturbing! I remember taking civic class in 9th grade in the 80s. Now it seems that civics has gone by the wayside. Please to all responders, don't marginalize this as a southern state issue, its everywhere.

Are you sure this is so ? I mean , he is on the DOLLAR for crying out loud .

so what ? we forgot everything else

Jubal, they have to dumb down people to be able to manipulate and control them. Notice how easy it is to reve up ditto heads who do not read. Stupidity and lack of curiosity is a boon for the Neo-conservatives.

NAFTA and the other big Corp. supported trade deals are taking all the living wage jobs, so an intelligent population is dangerous. Keep them uneducated and religious as they are in Mexico and other poor countries and they can be controlled.

All the really Red Evangelical states have the worse educational systems in school. They get the most welfare, have the highest divorce rates, lowest insured rates, hightest teen pregnancy, and hightest infant mortality.

S. Carolina is no. one in uninsured and bad medical outcomes, and Mississippi and Louisiana are next.

The follow are from an essay, 'Dark Matter', which is errors from middle, high school and college students submitted by their teachers. Some samples:
'Darwin's book stated that all animals evolved from primeval man.'
'As the rain forests in the Amazon are shrinking, so are the Indians.'
'Women are reproducing too fast for mankind to keep up.'
and my favorite...
'The largest mammals are to be found in the sea because there is nowhere else to put them.'

I posted this article yesterday. This double posting happens to me all the time. What's the use?

"The Oklahoma City-based think tank"
Honestly, I couldn't read past this line.

Connect the dots...

An uneducated population will vote for crazy people. Please see Inhofe.

Anyone heard of Idiocracy?

Pathetic.

I find it hard to believe that 75% of high school students can't name the first president. Who funded this study, anyone know?

*facepalm*

Please, please, please educate your children if the public schools fail them. I just ... I can't even find words... This is a tragedy.

I just wanna know how they made it to high school.

If you have kids, here is an easy way to teach them the Presidents in order. My wife used the President Song to the tune of She'll be Coming Round the Mountain. Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Adams, Jackson, Van Buren, Harrison, Tyler, Polk.........

It says more about us as a country than it does about Bush or any failed policy.

How long can a nation of willfully ignorant people survive?

I'll bet they can name a TV evangelist or two. OK is bass ackward.

No child left behind.....huh....umm...Okay.

yet somehow the repubs end up justifying hideously expensive wars with massive civilian casualties, but we cant find the money to educate ourselves?

Everyone should have to take a citizenship test to be allowed to vote or hold public office. Our major politicians should have to be PUBLICLY tested on the Constitution as well and failure should bar them from running for office for 5 years. Their testing should be filmed and show on CSPAN cheating should be punished with mandatory jail time and they should be barred from ever holding office.

The quality of our government is reflected in the quality of our voters and representatives. We don't just let anybody practice medicine or law or drive a car for that matter without the proper certification because it is too important. Our elections process and the government should be no different.

Seriously, my 78 year-old grandmother who was born Cuba can tell me in Spanish that Washington was the first president.

I wonder how many Americans in Oklahoma would fail a citizenship test... Utterly ridiculous and pathetic.