- Posted by David on June 24, 2010
6.23.10 - ARLINGTON, VA—While this Independence Day will certainly include the usual festivities – fireworks, cookouts, patriotic speeches and Americans dressed in red, white and blue – the meaning behind the celebration has not been lost on America’s next generation.
Perseverance and Courage Valued Most, Declaration of Independence and Thomas Jefferson Inspire Most
A new nationwide survey of nearly 3,000 high school students, released today by the Bill of Rights Institute, Arlington, VA, provides a glimpse into what the nation’s future leaders think about American citizenship: what civic values they admire, who their political heroes are, and which of our Founding documents inspire them the most.
The survey, based on an analysis of the top 3,000 essays submitted in the Bill of Rights Institute’s 2009-10 Being an American Essay Contest – the nation’s largest high school essay contest, with more than 50,000 entries this year – concentrated on three themes: civic values, Founding Fathers and American heroes, and Founding documents.
The survey found:
1. WHAT CIVIC VALUES DO AMERICAN STUDENTS VALUE MOST?
“Perseverance” and “courage” were cited most often as the civic values essential to being an American, with each value being chosen by approximately 15 percent of participating students. Other civic values identified by large numbers of students included equality and respect (14 percent), entrepreneurialism (12 percent), responsibility (9 percent) and liberty (8 percent).
2. WHO ARE THEIR HEROES, PAST AND PRESENT?
Making the top five list, in order, were Thomas Jefferson (18 percent), Abraham Lincoln (14 percent), Martin Luther King, Jr. (12 percent), George Washington (10 percent) and Thomas Paine (9 percent).
3. WHICH FOUNDING DOCUMENT INSPIRES THEM THE MOST?
Students cited the Declaration of Independence (47 percent) and the Constitution (33 percent) as the two most important and inspiring Founding documents, followed by Thomas Paine’s pamphlet, Common Sense.
The breakdown of other Founding documents cited is outlined below:
These results were consistent across all high school grade levels, in all school settings (public, private and home school), with one exception: The majority of 10th graders identified President Lincoln, not Jefferson, as their top hero.
“It’s clear that students have strong opinions about what it means to be a modern American in light of our Founding Fathers and documents,” said Jason Ross, Ph.D., vice president of education programs for the Bill of Rights Institute. “Perhaps even more important: The students believe that American citizens have a responsibility to live by certain principles, or civic values, and understand the importance of perseverance and courage.”
The analysis was conducted by Social Dynamics, LLC for the Bill of Rights Institute and paid for with a donation from Dr. John M. Templeton, Jr. Copies are available online at www.billofrightsinstitute.org or by contacting Sonia Blumstein at 205.620.2087 or Sonia@PRoactiveSolutionsInc.net.
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About the Being An American Essay Contest:
Sponsored by the Bill of Rights Institute, this annual contest asks students to write an essay in response to the following question: “What civic value do you believe is most essential to being an American? Trace the enduring importance of this value throughout the American story by discussing: a Founding document that reflects this value; a figure from American history who embodies this value; and examples of how you have and/or could put this value into practice.”
In the 2009-10 school year, more than 50,000 students participated in the contest. Nearly $200,000 in prize money was awarded to students and their sponsoring teachers. The top three students from each of nine regions, and their sponsoring teachers, won trips to Washington, DC.
About the Bill of Rights Institute:
The Bill of Rights Institute, founded in 1999, is a nonprofit educational organization. The mission of the Bill of Rights Institute is to educate young people about the words and ideas of America's Founders, the liberties guaranteed in our Founding documents, and how our Founding principles continue to affect and shape a free society.
- Posted by David on June 3, 2010
But any honest assessment of the bigger picture is more depressing. That's because the real race we're in is not a "race to the top" within the United States but a race to maintain middle-class living standards in a world where rising, hungry powers such as China and India now threaten them. It's a race against other advanced nations whose school systems routinely outperform ours.
Seen in this light, the outer limits of the Obama administration's ambitions are demonstrably unequal to the challenges we face. A one-time $4.5 billion incentive fund in a system that spends $600 billion a year simply can't produce fundamental change. As a result, for all the useful progress these efforts will bring, it is virtually certain that even if we get eight years of enlightened federal leadership from President Obama and Arne Duncan, America in 2016 will:
-- Still systematically assign the least-qualified teachers in America to the poor students who need great teachers the most -- and recruit teachers for poor neighborhoods from the bottom third of college graduates.
-- Still tolerate dramatic differences in per pupil funding between wealthy and poor districts in ways that no other advanced nation would accept.
-- Still have the federal government contributing a dramatically smaller percentage of K-12 funding than any other wealthy nation.
-- Still be spending more on K-12 than other advanced nations, with mediocre results.
-- Still be losing ground to other nations in college graduation rates and attainment.
-- Still expect American students to incur levels of debt to get a college degree that no other advanced nation allows. And Pell grants, despite increases, will still cover a smaller percentage of college costs than they did 30 years ago.
I'd be thrilled to be proved wrong on these predictions. But suppose, on the trajectory that's been set on education policy, that I'm right? What should we make of this paradox? The most innovative national education leadership we've had in decades -- yet leadership unequal to the magnitude of the challenge.
That's our lesson for today, class. It will take a bolder brand of leadership to get past this conundrum, and to promote an agenda that can deliver what the country needs.
Your homework at the dawn of the 21st century is to figure out how our leaders can ever get there if their followers -- that means you and me -- aren't demanding much, much more.
Matt Miller, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and co-host of public radio's "Left, Right & Center," writes a weekly column for The Post. He can be reached at mattino2@gmail.com.