U.S. Students Have Horrible History Test Scores (And What Should Be Done About It!)

The Problem

For those of your who haven't found out yet, American students don't know basic history of their own country. I can't say I find this surprising because no one in my school is really that excited about history, let alone American history. I think this is a major problem with our schools and one that we must fix!

The National Assessment of Educational Progress tests students every couple years to see if our education system is headed in the right direction. If we dive into the stats, it's clear to see that students have horrendous history test scores. Only 12 percent of high school seniors scored a "proficient" score on the test, which is down from 20 percent of 4th graders and 17 percent of 8th graders! Clearly our students aren't learning enough about history, especially at the high school level.

Even more disturbing are scores on specific parts of our country's history. Only 2 percent of high school seniors correctly answered a question regarding Brown vs. Board of Education, which was a very important court ruling in our nations history. If the scores are this low for a court ruling like Brown vs. Board, I can't even imagine how the students score on questions regarding our constitution and our country's founding, both of which I believe are very under taught.

Many analysts argue that the No Child Left Behind Act from 2002 is also a source of these bad history test scores. This act required schools to raise test scores in reading and math but no other subjects. Even though some of these policies can be made for a good cause, they can have bad effects on test scores, especially in history. Negative effects from policies like No Child Left Behind begs the question if our federal government should even be involved in our education system. I would say definitely not but that is a subject for a different blog article.

The Solution (Or Part Of It)

There are many things that need to be done to get US History scores back on track. Here are just three that I have seen either in the news or witnessed in school.

One: Stop teaching about Ancient Mesopotamia and more about our constitution. In my school career, we have had complete years of "history" class devoted to studying ancient history, Medieval times, and subjects pre-fall of Rome. All of which, have little to no impact on our country's history. Now, don't get me wrong, there isn't anything wrong with learning about these subjects, but why not leave them to high school where students can selectively learn about them in a specialized class? History classes that study United States history should be the required classes not the classes that are electives.

Two: Do not include LGBT history unless it is relevant! Many school districts are being sued for not including LGBT history in their classes. I think this is absurd in every way imaginable! Of course, however, I have no problem learning about it if it was relevant to the time and actually significantly impacted the history of that time period. But the problem is, many LGBT organizations aren't wanting to change history books to enrich the American school experience, they only want to push their agenda. This madness needs to stop. If we put more unneeded crap in our history classes, it will only worsen our students test scores and knowledge of our history.

Three: Change the students perspective. When most people think about a high school history class, they think dull and boring. But that's exactly the opposite of what American history is! The story of America is exciting and inspiring! Textbooks and teachers need to portray this instead of making history boring and, in turn, making all the students hate history class. One part of this is having good textbooks that provide accurate and non-baised accounts of history. I would personally recommend A Patriot's History of the United States. The second part of this is having inspiring and exciting teachers in the classroom teaching the material. I personally can't stand when history teachers always seem annoyed with the subject that they teach.

Of course these aren't the only steps that need to be taken to get our students back on track when it comes to US history. These are only the ones that I've seen in the years of public schooling that I've been through. What else needs to be done to improve this generations knowledge of history?