A RECENT survey of high school students has confirmed what most Americans already know -- the Pacific Ocean is somewhere south of Miami, where the Prime Meridian divides westward flowing rivers from the Sea of Japan. Sorry, wrong survey. The one I am writing about shows that over one-third of high school students think "freedom of the press" means "freedom not to read what the government doesn't want me to see."
The survey of 112,003 high school students conducted by the University of Connecticut found that 36 percent think newspapers should get "government approval" before printing stories, in contrast to 51 percent who think papers should be allowed to print freely. The study also reveals that 32 percent of students think the press has "too much freedom," compared to 10 percent who say too little and 37 percent who say it has the right amount of freedom.
Now consider that a recent worldwide Internet quiz found that Americans rank below citizens of Croatia, Bangladesh and Uzbekistan in geographic knowledge. A 2002 survey by National Geographic found 30 percent of Americans unable to locate the Pacific Ocean, 69 percent unable to locate the United Kingdom and even 11 percent unable to locate the United States. One may think that geography has little to do with the Constitution, but something tells me that the same third of students who have mistaken ideas about the Pacific Ocean also have them about the Bill of Rights.
America's geography predicament highlights one weak point in the structure of the American education system, while the freedom of the press survey shows how the whole thing is headed for collapse. America's mediocre public education system has become too narrow and too focused inward to create the next generation of responsible citizens.
A solution to the specific problem of students wanting control of newspapers -- and this may seem like a shameless plug -- would be for more students to involve themselves in student journalism. Through journalism, students would understand that in the quest for truth it is sometimes necessary to say and print things that may not always be popular with those in power because those in power don't always have truth as their highest priority. The unique mission of student journalism to advance the truth is different from most every other student group, like political groups whose mission is to advance a specific ideology, or Student Council, whose mission is to advance one's self.
But to the larger issue of solving the problem through education, one often proposed solution is an increased emphasis in civics education. Civics education is helpful, but the problem with current education about the Bill of Rights is that it is often Americentric. Students are told that the Bill of Rights emerged from a fuss with wigged British sissies and their king from more than 200 years ago. The problem is, to the modern hip teenager living in a world mostly devoid of kings and wigs, this rationale doesn't sound all that compelling.
A better approach would be a broader survey of history and life outside the United States, as a muddled knowledge of the outside world goes hand in hand with warped ideas of our own nation, and thus endangers our nation's future.
One of the best ways to show why the Bill of Rights is important would be for students to study places, past and present, where basic rights had no protection, and contrast those places to the United States. After studying Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, students would discover that government control of the press isn't such a fabulous idea.
However, if our broken education system does not educate, even a refocused curriculum may not prevent students from adopting scary ideas about the meaning of free speech and the role of government. To this end, the best protection against a future generation of ignorant adults may be to reform the failed monopoly that created them. This is a topic for another day, but I leave you with a question from Alan Keyes: "Do we really think that a government-dominated education is going to produce citizens capable of dominating their government?"
Given the well-documented failure of state schools, I'd say the answer is "Alaska." I mean, "no."
Herb Ladley is a Cavalier Daily associate editor. He can be reached at hladley@cavalierdaily.com
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