The Case for a Core Curriculum

“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free…it expects what never was and never will be.”
—Thomas Jefferson

On September 26th, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) released the findings of an unprecedented review of higher education’s efficiency in increasing student knowledge of America’s history and crucial institutions. The study, conducted by the University of Connecticut’s Department of Public Policy (UCDPP), asked more than 14,000 randomly selected freshmen and seniors at 50 colleges and universities 60 multiple-choice questions. The test determined student knowledge in four subjects: (1) American history; (2) government; (3) America and the world; (4) the market economy. Of the schools polled, Brown’s performance was among the worst.

ISI’s report presents four primary findings, all of which pertain directly to Brown’s educational methods. The first key finding reiterates the title of ISI’s report—The Coming Crisis In Citizenship: Higher Education’s Failure to Teach America’s History and Institutions. “America’s colleges and universities fail to increase knowledge about America’s history and institutions,” ISI confidently testifies. Evidence for this is found within the results of the test scores: seniors, on average, scored a mere 1.5 percent higher than freshmen. That average score was 53.2 percent. Even with a most generous grading curve, this is an F.

Worse than the failing grade, however, were the particulars. For instance, only 47.9 percent of seniors knew that the line “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,” is found within the Declaration of Independence. And 72.8 percent failed to name the source of the idea of “a wall of separation” between church and state.

The ISI’s second key finding describes Brown University’s unique role within UCDPP’s probe into higher education. A school’s “prestige doesn’t pay off,” the report declares. “Colleges that rank high in the U.S. News and World Report 2006 ranking were ranked low in the ISI ranking of learning in these key fields.” While seniors at schools such as Rhodes College and Calvin College were found to have increased their knowledge of American history and institutions by 11.6% and 9.5% respectively, this study discovered that students attending more prestigious universities experience a moribund concern for civic literacy during their college years. According to the test results, 16 schools exhibited “negative learning,” a term that describes a situation where freshmen demonstrated more civic knowledge than the seniors. Among the 50 schools surveyed, Yale ranked 44th with a –1.5 percent change in civic literacy. Brown ranked 47th with a –2.7 percent change. And Cornell ranked 48th with a –3.3 percent change. “Our ‘best’ colleges and universities are the worst offenders when it comes to a failure to teach America’s history and institutions,” ISI reports.