“Given a blank map of the United States, one in three fourth-graders can’t find their state and mark it with an X,” CBS News reports.
“When asked to write the name of the ‘state or district where you live,’ many marked an adjacent state or wrote the name of their city.”
The question was on a national geography test given last year, the results of which were released Friday by the Education Department.
Among the findings:
Overall, scores of fourth- and eighth-graders rose slightly since 1994, the first time the test was given. Twelfth-graders’ scores were unchanged.
21 percent of fourth-graders, 30 percent of eighth-graders and 25 percent of 12th-graders scored at the proficient level.
The National Assessment Governing Board, the independent group that developed the test, defines proficient as showing solid academic performance and the ability to apply knowledge to actual situations.
Aha! So now I know why so many of you who visit this site regularly have avoided placing your pushpins in that little Guest Map I put up.
‘S alright. Outside of California and Florida, all those rectangles and rhomboids look the same to me, too. And so long as these kids graduate knowing enough to give me the proper change for my Big Montana sandwich and curly fries, it’s all good…
What Guest Map? I know where I live, although I did sit next to a girl in 7th grade who couldn’t name the country we lived in.
It’s the little white boxy link hiding over there in the lefthand column under the deceptive name “View my Guestmap.”
I have a friend whose five year old daughter could, when given the name of a state, provide the capitol and the adjacent states—when she was two!
Amazing. Not all parents have given up and trusted their children’s futures to government schools.