American government is divided into three branches. Can you name them? If so, you’re in the minority. National polling finds that only 26 percent of Americans can name all three branches of the government. This is down from 38 percent in 2011. Worse, 33 percent of Americans surveyed were unable to name even one branch of government....
Two weeks ago, a demonstration in support of Supreme Court nominee (now Justice) Brett Kavanaugh at the University of Texas at Austin was met with not only opposition but also some pushing and shoving. UT is far from the only school to witness such confrontations. Even the First Amendment, it would seem, has become a...
It has been ten years since the Federal Higher Education Act was last reauthorized. Little-noticed at the time, the 2008 reauthorization added a new provision—“American History for Freedom” (AHF)—which sought to counteract the politically correct agenda that has become all the rage at too many colleges and universities. AHF would award government funds to academic...
When I moved from Illinois to Texas, years ago, my children were still at the K-12 level. Helping my seventh-grader with her homework, I was struck by my new state’s commitment to teaching the history of Texas. Earlier this month, that commitment appeared to be wavering. But today, thanks to a mobilized citizenry, Texas students...
For roughly the past fifty years, higher education reformers have been warning about the decline in civic education in this country. National polling consistently shows that Americans, even college graduates, are growing increasingly civically illiterate. A recent survey found that only 36% of respondents can identify the three branches of American government. A mere 27% know that...
Today, college students are saddled with more student loan debt than ever before in American history. The average student loan debt for 2017 graduates was over $39,000, which is a six percent uptick from 2016. Students owe nearly $1.5 trillion in student loan debt. According to the website, StudentLoanHero.com, student loan debt now runs $620 billion higher than...
If some public universities have lost sight of the fact that freedom of speech is essential to both education and American democracy, the American people are fortunate that a growing number of state legislatures have not. Several weeks ago, Louisiana Governor John Edwards signed SB 364, a bill crafted to restore students’ free speech at the...
Just how bad is the state of free speech and debate on America’s campuses? In March 2018, Gallup/Knight looked to answer this question through conducting a survey of more than 3,000 college students. The results are frightening: The survey reveals that 61 percent of American college students find that their school prevents some students and faculty from...
Last year, in these pages, I reported that, on January 13, 2017 (just one week before the Obama administration exited DC), the Obama Department of Education released a memorandum confessing that it had “overstated student loan repayment rates at most colleges and trade schools.” The “updated numbers” provided by the Department were analyzed by the Wall Street...
Most college graduates above the age of 55 remember that their best teachers refused to allow themselves to be pigeonholed as mere hawkers of one political agenda over another. They refused to do this not because they were politically indifferent, but because they knew that their job was to teach, not indoctrinate. And they knew...
If students continue to be deprived of the growth opportunities provided by encountering and debating ideas with which they disagree, they will come to lack the qualities essential to informed, effective citizenship. Key Points: There has recently been a plethora of news accounts exposing serious restrictions on free speech and debate on our country's campuses. ...
I write this report more in sorrow than anger, for I never thought I’d see the day when a law school dean would damn the First Amendment. This is the point we’ve come to on too many campuses today: Our academics teach suicide for the American experiment in democratic freedom. On March 29, South Texas College...