The Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) has released a new study which claims to present "scientific evidence that, for the very first time, reveals how much American colleges and universities-including some of our most elite schools-add to, or subtract from, their graduates' understanding of America's history and fundamental institutions."

Right off the bat we should be suspicious of this partisan organization; much of their funding comes from the same foundations that fund various right-wing astro-turf groups.  It's not unreasonable to guess this study might be used as an attack on higher education.  Onto the content....

ISI's report, titled The Coming Crisis in Citizenship: Higher Education's Failure to Teach America's History and Institutions, ranks 50 major higher education institutions according to their ability to increase students' knowledge about America's history and institutions.  Apparently correctly answering questions which ask when women were guaranteed the right to vote greatly furthers our "understand[ing] [of our] nation's history and founding principles."  It might be good knowledge to have, but it is not indicative of a students' understanding of anything.  In fact the questions asked seem to be testing a student's memorization of various facts about America, not a meaningful understanding of America's history and founding principles.  Knowledge about the popular struggles which led to women's suffrage may lead to an understanding of that portion of American history, but that's not what the report seeks to measure.

The solution to the "problem" presented by the reports findings would appear to be the introduction of an elementary civics course to each student's college education.  This way students could learn some basic facts about America and retain the information long enough to pass surveys such as the one prepared by the ISI.  This wouldn't resolve the supposed "crisis in citizenship," but it would probably make for better results on studies such as these.

Moreover, the analysis of the ISI study is similar to the naysayers who see a fading republic every time a news story like this one pops up.  Americans aren't getting dumber (evolution doesn't work that fast.)  They simply have knowledge and expertise in other areas.  When a former student from an elite school such as Brown, Georgetown, and Yale (where "negative learning" is supposedly taking place) cures cancer, I will be waiting to hear if someone from ISI cares to ask if said cancer-curer is aware that "social security is the largest payout of the federal government's budget."

It should also be noted that the questions asked in the student survey skip over major segments of American history which are probably not appealing to the right-wing ISI anyway.  This includes any mention of the civil rights movement, or any other social movement that worked to guarantee equal rights for all Americans. 

Finally, this ISI study is reminiscent of bogus claims that Americans students do not know as much or are not as smart as their counterparts from previous generations.  If an American student doesn't know what the outcome of the War of 1812 was, it is likely that the student learned the information at one point to pass a test and forgot it sometime afterward after he or she decided it wasn't useful for the time being.  If a student needs to find out information on the Supreme Court or World War II or anything else that was tested in ISI's survey, they will find out that information on their own.  And that is now easier than ever thanks to new technologies, such as the internet, that were developed at elite universities where ISI claims "negative learning" is taking place.