About that Oklahoma high school survey...

...in which it was found that 77% of Oklahoma high school students do not know who the first president of the United States was (among other things). I noticed the survey results were posted a few days ago on DU but I didn't have time to comment then.

Think about it. This survey is almost certainly bogus, ridiculous on its face. I first heard of it about a week or ten days ago when I was watching MSNBC. It was uncritically reported as fact by Chris Matthews with the usual attendant outrage. I noticed it was also published as fact on the Puffington Post (sorry, I couldn't resist). If it's bad news about public education, it is accepted as fact. No digging or investigative reporting required, for everyone knows that public schools are failing.

Last week on Friday one of my special education students who I have for language arts happened to bring his social studies book with him to my class. He wanted to know if he could have some time to work on a social studies assignment. This little guy (third grader) has been getting in a bit of trouble lately with his regular education teacher for not making any effort in science and social studies.

Well, as you might guess, the Oklahoma survey came to mind. Before we even opened his book, I asked the boy who the first president was. He answered George Washington without hesitation. Ha, if I think of it tomorrow I'll take each of my students aside as they are leaving and ask them who the first president was. I guarantee you my 'survey' will be every bit as scientific as this Oklahoma survey was.

It was a telephone survey, for heaven's sake, commissioned by the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs (OCPA), a state level conservative think tank, with an ideology very similar to national conservative think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and the Hudson Institution. I'm sure they were just curious and deeply concerned about our public schools, with no agenda to prove they are failing. Is there a sarcasm icon?

An anti-government, anti-public think tank.

"Throughout its 15 years of existence, OCPA has conducted research and analysis of public issues in Oklahoma from a perspective of limited government, individual liberty and a free-market economy."

Here is how they apparently administered the test. They anonymously called 1000 Oklahoma students and asked them 10 questions, including who the first president was.

I'd bet a nickel the over-tested high school students had great fun with the answers they gave.

The OCPA and Strategic Vision (the company OCPA commissioned to conduct the poll) should be required to publish the actual answers the kids gave to determine how seriously they took this non-school, condescending test. I'll bet the answers were very entertaining!

I apologize if this is a rehash of comments that may have been posted earlier. The thread I saw the other day just posted the results of the survey and I felt a separate thread was in order to at least question the legitimacy of the survey. You decide.

It's late, good night. I'll check on this thread tomorrow. Thanks for listening.

BTW, some interesting discussion concerning this survey can be found here: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/09/are-oklahoma-students-really-this-dumb.html

I have seen a lot of 1st year students just out of high school as a graduate assistant in history and government who fit that mold.

on schools to have every student college ready (hello Bill Gates, our de facto national superintendent of schols) whether it is appropriate for them or not, whether that is what they really want or not. Yet there aren't nearly enough good paying jobs for the college graduates that we have. I'm not saying that this is the only reason for the observation that you make, but certainly part of it.

However, a good many - not all: there are some stellar kids out there - have had no exposure (or only minimal exposure) to critical thinking skills. I see so many who not only can't spell (they spell phonetically as they hear it in their environment: "witch" for "which", etc. and there is the ever popular "nookular")

I teach history and government (including constitutional law) and a good percentage of our time is spent not covering the material, but teaching critical thinking and communication skills. That's OK, in one sense, as I think that my subjects are especially well suited for that.

Maybe its just the group I see. The most outstanding students I see are foreign students. I have seen some especially talented and well prepared students from Africa.

Much, if not most of this, I think , is due to the lack of emphasis and support for these basic skills at home or within the groups where they live.

Of couse, most of them can text faster ad more accurately than I can type! LOL

Just some thoughts

Here's one of the many interesting parts of the survey meta analysis:

"When I first saw these results a couple weeks ago, they really got my spidey sense tingling. Forget about the overall level of knowledge being low -- what I found strange was that there were no students, out of 1,000, who answered as many of eight out of the ten questions correctly. Isn't there some total nerd in Tulsa, some AP Honors student in Stillwater, who was able to answer at least eight of these ten very basic questions correctly? The distribution seems to be too compact."

A sample size of 1000 is pretty large as random surveys go. So you'd think that SOMEWHERE someone would have been able to answer all these questions. I've heard our students speak and we're not blowing the doors off any test, but they could have gotten more answers right than this. This smells really fishy.

Strategic Vision has been in the news quite a bit lately. All bad.

This was the first I had ever heard of them but I'll sure be leery of them in the future.

and just want to give it a bump this evening to see how it goes.

But more eyes on it isn't a bad thing, nevertheless.

simply reported the results of the survey. I think mention of 538 was only in the comments, which I'm assuming lots of people don't read?? Anyway, I just thought a debunking thread of its own was in order. I could have easily missed something though. Again, I apologize if that is the case.

from http://www.ocpathink.org/publications/perspective-archives/september-2009-volume-16-number-9/?module=perspective&id=2321

Q: What are the two major political parties in the United States?

A: Democrat and Republican.

The fact that 11% of all respondents answered the same smart-ass way to question 7 (Republican and Communist) is evidence enough.

Seriously, the MSM is a fucked up amateur piece of shit when it will take any polling for its word as long as it seems "shocking".

Journalism in this country is a joke.