This is the score report for the civic literacy quiz (see link below) by college. Some of the results are predictable. The quality of a Harvard education is no myth. Harvard placed in the top five among incoming freshman and first among outgoing seniors, so it takes some of the brightest students and educates them well.But many other prestigious universities perform very poorly. Berkeley takes in fairly smart freshmen and REDUCES their score by the time they leave. Cornell takes in very bright students (almost Harvard level) and reduces their score SIGNIFICANTLY. Cornell and Berkeley also scored negatively the last time the comparison was made.
Based on the current comparison, Yale and Duke actually take in better-educated freshmen than Harvard, but those bright kids leave school knowing less than when they arrived.
A small surprise. After Harvard, the most impressive results on the chart are earned by Washington and Lee University. Their incoming freshmen obtain a score only a bit lower than Harvard's, and they improve almost as much as Harvard's grads. Notre Dame also performs well, although a step lower than the other two.
The greatest improvement is earned by students at Eastern Connecticut, but that is deceptive because even their much-improved outgoing score is pathetically low.
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Civic Literacy Report - Tables
I scored 93%. . .but I would have scored considerably lower had I not figured out that the last ten questions or so are loaded, pro-free market questions and that the most pro-free market answer (even if it is arguably wrong) will be counted as correct. It's little wonder that, say, Berkeley students score poorly when about a fifth of the test is like a free market catachism.
ReplyDeleteThat said, the first 4/5ths of the test is excellent--good, solid questions that more Americans ought to know the answers to.