But I bet they know all about systemic racism and the impending climate change apocalypse….
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But I bet they know all about systemic racism and the impending climate change apocalypse….
Ethics Alarms 
I hate this kind of stuff for two reasons.
First, we don’t know how many students answered all the questions correctly. UVa has over 25,000 students (including my niece, who’d have no trouble at all with those questions). Chances are pretty good that in a sample size that big you can find a handful of kids who aren’t as prepared as they ought to be… or who simply froze up on camera. The one particularly vapid young woman is indeed a little scary, though.
Second, whereas knowing who your senators are or how long they serve is basic knowledge, the number of amendments to the Constitution is little more than trivia–who cares if it’s 26 or 27 or 28? And I would have second-guessed myself on the first three words of the Constitution: “We the people… no, wait… is that the Declaration of Independence? No, that’s ‘When in the course of human events.’ Yeah, ‘We the people.” Doesn’t make me unfit.
I was more disturbed by the various rationalizations offered to excuse the ignorance. I particularly enjoyed the logic that if you insist on civic and historical literacy, everyone will end up thinking the same.
(I wouldn’t know the exact number of Amendments for sure, but would have guessed correctly.)
No one who’s in college should fail to know the number of years a Senator serves, though. It’s not that the answer is important in itself, but how much else one doesn’t know if they don’t know that.
The lady who said we shouldn’t expect high schoolers to have a base level of knowledge made my head explode. That is unfortunately a symptom of where our education system is right now.
I chuckled at the part where she says she likes to think of herself as a person with a certain degree of intelligence. Of course you do, dear, everybody does. The tricky part is whether it’s actually true.
Agreed.
jvb
Agreed, you wonder how many people did they have to interview to get these responses. I might flunk the names of my senators on occasion but usually I think I’d know that. My congressman used to be easy, but he retired after 30+ years. On the other hand, it’s a massively Democratic district — I believe the last Republican was elected in 1994, maybe the only Republican since Reconstruction.
Terms of office — one should know that, not just for U.S. senators but for most offices you vote for, i.e. Congressmen, president, governor, legislators.
I would have guess mid 20s on amendments, except that we’ve discussed the 25th so often lately and I know that wasn’t the last.
Gotcha videos like this can sometimes be amusing, but they generally don’t prove anything.
They at least prove that kids can graduate from high school in the country without minimal operating knowledge of their own nation and government. One example is enough to prove to me that our civic education has dangerous holes. And the level of critical thought displayed by several of those young women shows that schools aren’t reliably training students in critical thinking, either
How about asking if they know the dress code on the Senate floor? Which until yesterday was a suit and tie.
Dress code be damned!
Where is the dignity of this Office? Making a mockery of the institution.
That’s my Senator from PA, John Fetterman, that crazy trend setter.
And Schumer = Disgraceful.
JL
I would be tempted to support laws restricting voting to those who pass an annual civics exam, except that we can not trust that this law will not be enforced in an even-handed manner.