regrettably, children are the future

A survey of 1,200 public high school students yields depressing results:

•43% knew the Civil War was fought between 1850 and 1900.

•52% could identify the theme of 1984.

•51% knew that the controversy surrounding Sen. Joseph McCarthy focused on communism.

In all, students earned a C in history and an F in literature, though the survey suggests students do well on topics schools cover. For instance, 88% knew the bombing of Pearl Harbor led the USA into World War II, and 97% could identify Martin Luther King Jr. as author of the "I Have a Dream" speech.

Fewer (77%) knew Uncle Tom's Cabin helped end slavery a century earlier.

So are we to deduce from this that many schools aren't covering the Civil War?

Comments

[Ben K]

Actually, if I recall, lots of classes that I took would focus on pre-civil war one semester, and 'modern' history afterwards, and the civil war was supposed to be covered at the end of the first bit. Inevitably, we ran out of time and never made it there.

This was a common occurrence in middle and high school - the history classes never made it to the last section because you were always behind.