The new data on students’ knowledge of history and civics is abysmal. There’s no other way to describe it. These are the lowest scores ever recorded:
➡️13% are proficient in U.S. history
➡️20% are proficient in civics pic.twitter.com/WzweyhVXsS— Betsy DeVos (@BetsyDeVos) May 3, 2023
The “Nation’s Report Card” is out with new results on what our eighth-graders know about U.S. history and civics, and the results are grim. The National Assessment of Educational Progress today reported that this is the first time civics results declined significantly on the quarter-century-old exam. In history, the results continued a nearly decade-long decline.
The U.S. history test covers key figures, dates, and events, as well as student familiarity with key historical ideas and movements. The civics test gauges students’ knowledge, their ability to take or defend positions on political issues, and their understanding of democratic participation. The tests were administered in spring 2022, with a nationally representative sample of 8,000 eighth-graders who took the history test and 7,800 the civics exam.