{"id":15007,"date":"2015-03-19T09:45:49","date_gmt":"2015-03-19T13:45:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=15007"},"modified":"2015-03-19T09:45:49","modified_gmt":"2015-03-19T13:45:49","slug":"requiring-federal-citizenship-test-high-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=15007","title":{"rendered":"on requiring the federal citizenship test in high school"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I have an op-ed on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/opinion\/2015\/03\/18\/federal-citizenship-test-what-should-good-citizen-really-know-about-america\/\">FoxNews.com<\/a> against the recent wave of state laws that require students to pass the US citizenship test. It begins:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Quick: how many amendments to the U.S. Constitution have been ratified?<\/p>\n<p>The answer is 27. The question comes from the federal test required for new citizens. Arizona and North Dakota recently made passing that test a graduation requirement for all their high school students, and several other states are considering the idea.\u00a0 I fear imposing this test will actually reduce the amount of civics our young people study and remember.<\/p>\n<p>The federal citizenship test consists of 100 multiple-choice questions; individuals see a random sample of 10. The easiest way to prepare for it is to memorize the 100 right answers. When you see the key word \u201camendment,\u201d you remember to choose \u201c27.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I argue against this\u00a0test as a tool for improving civics. But\u00a0the idea is well-intentioned and may do good if it prompts a discussion about what our kids <em>should<\/em> learn and how we <em>should<\/em> test them. Civics\u00a0doesn&#8217;t get a lot of attention; those of us who try to raise its profile\u00a0are rarely successful. This year&#8217;s debate about the citizenship test in high schools may have brought more visibility to the\u00a0topic than anything that&#8217;s happened in all the years I&#8217;ve been involved with civics. In my Fox News piece, I ask readers to consider what a better assessment would look like. If legislators and other leaders ask themselves that\u00a0question, we\u00a0may see better policies&#8211;and then we should thank the proponents of the citizenship\u00a0test for prompting this conversation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have an op-ed on FoxNews.com against the recent wave of state laws that require students to pass the US citizenship test. It begins: Quick: how many amendments to the U.S. Constitution have been ratified? The answer is 27. The question comes from the federal test required for new citizens. Arizona and North Dakota recently [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advocating-civic-education","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15007"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15021,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15007\/revisions\/15021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}