Who is smarter

December 3, 2008 – 1:14 pm

Taking a civics quiz, you’d think, would be easy. After all aren’t our Public schools just wonderful? Try this yourself: http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/2008/quiz.

What is discouraging is contemplating the knowledge demonstrated by those YOU elect to govern (represent? Yeah right) us.

Check out this comparison of citizen civics knowledge to that of policitians. Look at this scary Zogby Poll.

Theme of Question		Citizens	Elected Politicians	Knowledge Gap
Are You Smarter Than a Politician?
Of the 2,508 People surveyed, 164 say they have held an elected government office at least once in their life. Their average score on the civic literacy test is 44%, compared to 49% for those who have not held an elected office. Officeholders are less likely than other respondents to correctly answer 29 of the 33 test questions. This table shows the “knowledge gap” for each question: the difference between the percentage of common citizens who answered correctly and the percentage of officeholders who answered correctly.
1.	U.S. – Soviet Tension in 1962	70.09%	56.51%	-13.58%
2.	Declaration of Independence	83.09	69.78	-13.31
3.	Sputnik	74.1	62.82	-11.28
4.	Definition of Free Enterprise	41.45	32.08	-9.37
5.	M. L. King’s “I Have a Dream”	80.5	71.5	-9
6.	Electoral College	65.88	57.31	-8.57
7.	Scopes “Monkey Trial”	67.76	59.21	-8.55
8.	Susan B. Anthony	80.84	72.98	-7.86
9.	Power to Declare War	53.6	45.82	-7.78
10.	Business Profit	49.11	41.38	-7.73
11.	International Trade	37.47	30.45	-7.02
12.	FDR’s Government Programs	66.63	59.73	-6.9
13.	Abortion	50.77	43.94	-6.83
14.	Federal Branches and Foreign Policy	54.71	48.39	-6.32
15.	First Amendment Freedoms	79.58	73.32	-6.26
16.	Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas	29.49	23.29	-6.2
17.	FDR and the Supreme Court	25.07	19.24	-5.83
18.	Taxes and Government Spending	27.7	22.12	-5.58
19.	Free Markets vs. Centralized Planning	16.25	10.71	-5.54
20.	Action Prohibited by the Bill of Rights	26.41	21.24	-5.17
21.	Commander in Chief	79.04	74.46	-4.58
22.	Anti-Federalists and the Constitution	38.22	33.82	-4.4
23.	Source of phrase “a wall of separation”	18.92	15.07	-3.85
24.	Policy Tool of the Federal Reserve	43.12	40.48	-2.64
25.	Powers of the Federal Government	75.01	72.69	-2.32
26.	World War II Enemies	68.76	66.58	-2.18
27.	The Puritans	19.1	17.32	-1.78
28.	Definition of a Progressive Tax	51.26	49.97	-1.29
29.	Three Branches of Government	49.65	49.32	-0.33
30.	Definition of a Public Good	27.6	28.03	0.43
31.	Gettysburg Address	21.06	22.95	1.89
32.	Fiscal Policy for Economic Stimulus	36.07	39.93	3.86
33.	Lincoln–Douglas Debates	19.06	23.62	4.56