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In 1492 Columbus Sailed the Ocean Blue
Last week American teens took a pop quiz over the phone and flunked. A group called Common Core gave them the quiz. Callers asked teenagers 33 multiple-choice questions about history and literature.
The questions came from a test that the federal government used in 1986 to measure how much teens knew about the topics. All the kids who took the test were 17 years old. Of the 1,200 who were asked, only a fourth knew that Adolph Hitler was the Chancellor of Germany during World War II. The same very small percentage of kids knew that Christopher Columbus sailed to the New World in 1492.
Does the test mean that today's teens aren't as smart as they were in 1986? Not exactly. Right now, schools are graded on how well they teach reading and math to kids. That's because a federal law called No Child Left Behind requires schools to make sure students pass tests in those two subjects. Common Core was trying to show that kids should be taught a variety of subjects in school. If schools spend all their time teaching reading and math, then there won't be enough time for other important topics including history, literature, art, and social studies.
I'm Ben and that's what happened in our nation this week.
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