Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

Do America's Schools Shortchange Kids?

Aired May 13, 2002 - 08:29   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: The big question at this hour, do America's schools shortchange your kids? Some people gives schools an A as in abysmal or alarming. Those are two words being used to describe the performance of American high school students on a U.S. history test last week.

For a majority of American high school seniors, 57 percent, the test reveals that history is somewhat of a mystery. As well, we've been telling you this morning, we did some informal testing of our own this weekend using the question that nearly half of the students got wrong. And the question was, what was the major cause of the Civil War?

Well, we asked high school students in New York and Washington and here is how some of them answered.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That would be B, slavery, right?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: B, the slavery.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A. Is it A?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, it's actually B.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Disagreed over slavery.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: Well, two out of three isn't bad. The correct answer, of course, is B, disagreed over slavery.

And joining us now from Washington with his take on the national history report card, CNN contributor Bill Bennett.

Good morning.

WILLIAM BENNETT, EMPOWER AMERICA, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Good morning, Paula. ZAHN: Before we get to the sad state of our understanding of histories and high schools, I saw that you got a mention in Bill Safire's column over the weekend in the "New York Times."

BENNETT: Yes. Yes, indeed. Yes. He credited me with one or two other people with the phrase moral clarity, which is now in circulation. It's the subtitle of my book. Safire does that language column and talks about where this came from.

Actually, the phrase was used long before I used it. But in this round we had something to do with it and CNN had something to do with it. So good for us.

ZAHN: So does the administration have more unclarity at the moment?

BENNETT: I think it's unclearer all the time exactly what we're going to do. But we shall see. This Likud vote complicates things, obviously, for the president. You now have the Likud Party, which is Sharon's party and Netanyahu's party, saying something diametrically opposed to what President Bush is saying, which is that there shall be two states, Israel and Palestine. That vote by Likud says we shall never accept a state of Palestine.

Now, you know, the conditions that have been put on these discussions, in any case, by Sharon, the conditions precedent for the establishment of a Palestinian state probably wouldn't be satisfied anyway by the Palestinian Authority. So the question may be moot.

But it's muddy. Yes, ma'am, it's not clear, it's muddy.

ZAHN: All right, so let's move on to the history...

BENNETT: Yes...

ZAHN: ... the issue of these history tests.

BENNETT: OK.

ZAHN: What is with those scores?

BENNETT: What is with those scores? Well, they're bad and they get worse. It's, 18 percent of our fourth graders are proficient, which means very knowledgeable, 17 percent of our eight graders and 10 percent of our seniors. So the longer you go in school in America, the less you know about American history. That's not literally true, but in terms of what you should know each year, things get worse.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress, which did this assessment, is a very good and reliable instrument, Paula. And it points out that our kids' knowledge of history is worse than in any other subject. We have some real problems in math and science, but it turns out history is our biggest gap.

ZAHN: So let's go through some of the warning signs that you have for parents and things they should be aware of if they want to put a little heat on their school administrators.

BENNETT: OK. Right. Well, when I established K12, which is my business, which is an Internet based school, we called our history, history. And in it, it's history and geography. Be careful of something called social studies. It might be good or it might be just a glop of stuff that's sociology and personal history and biography and how do you feel today.

We're interested in the story, the narrative and the essential elements of American and world history.

ZAHN: And then your second point is beware of history classes that ignore geography and historical dates in early grades.

BENNETT: Yes, dates and memorization and events have taken a beating over the last 30 years. But, you know, most of the things I remember are things that I was made to remember. So there is something to be said for remembering things.

Look for specificity. Parents should say does this textbook and do these lessons have specific dates, definitions and times? That's not all there is to history, but it's an important part.

ZAHN: And that is the third point, no focus on important historical facts, events. This should be a, you know, the red flag should be going up here, Founding Fathers, Emancipation Proclamation, French Revolution.

BENNETT: Yes, and rather than what's in your backyard or have you spoke to the postman or tell us a story about your community, those things are nice and fun, but the great narrative of American history, indeed, of world history, is what we want kids to know.

And you know what's interesting? Kids are really less interested in talking about themselves and more interested in finding out about these great and important events and people of the past. There's great romance in history. You know, the story that begins once upon a time, and in the case of history is a true story, still has a lot of appeal to young people.

ZAHN: Well, it does, but clearly, I mean, the picture is quite distorted when you have a number of those kids, these high school kids thinking the Civil War started because gold was found in the South or oil was found in the North. Give me a break.

BENNETT: Yes, well, give us all a break and give the kids a break by teaching them the right stuff. There are fashions in the intellectual world, as elsewhere, Paula, as you know, and the fashion about 30 years ago was to strike out all this stuff about, you know, people who don't, aren't alive anymore and these dates and all that business and get into history by getting into yourself. It was called expanding environments. And so you start with yourself and your backyard and what's going on down the street and gradually take in the scope of the wider world.

But -- and that's not the way it works and not the way it should work. If you have good books, original materials, if you have writing assignments and if you have, obviously, good teaching -- I was in a classroom last Friday at the Links School (ph) in Newark and saw an excellent teacher in the seventh grade -- this story can come alive.

This teacher was doing the Constitutional Convention to a class of all African-American children and making Madison and Washington and Franklin come alive to these kids and they were very, very excited. It works. It's, you know, American history is a wonderful story.

ZAHN: Well, the impassioned teachers are certainly out there. They just need a little more support from the system, I think.

BENNETT: Sometimes they do.

ZAHN: William Bennett, as always, good to see you. Thanks for your insights. Appreciate it.

BENNETT: Thanks, Paula. Thank you.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com