Historian David Barton, founder of WallBuilders, gives Jenny Beth Martin a statistic that should stop every parent. To become a citizen, a legal immigrant studies for the U.S. civics test and, Barton says, about 91 percent pass it on the first try after just a few months of preparation — many arriving knowing almost nothing about America. After twelve years of American public education, only about 4 percent of our own high-school students can pass that same test.
Barton traces how the gap grew. History, he points out, is the only subject in all 50 states with no end-of-course exam — so it goes untested and under-taught, and teachers are paid on the results of the tests that do exist. He tells how Joe Foss, the World War II ace and former South Dakota governor, first pushed Arizona to make the immigration test a high-school graduation requirement, and how 13 states now use it. The result of four decades of neglect, Barton argues, is a kind of national amnesia — a country that no longer knows its own story, and a generation vulnerable to ideas it has no history to weigh them against. Fixing it, he says, starts with teaching Americans to think again.
Get David Barton's book at wallbuilders.com. Watch more at jennybethshow.com, and learn about Tea Party Patriots Action at teapartypatriots.org.
00:00 — The Test Every Immigrant Must Pass
00:20 — 91% Pass on the First Try
01:00 — Arizona Made It a Graduation Exam
01:31 — Only 4% of Our Students Can Pass
#JennyBethShow #DavidBarton #CivicsTest #AmericanHistory #July4th #America250 #ClassicalEducation #WallBuilders