All Missouri high school students may have to take a citizenship test before graduation if a proposal from the Civics Education Initiative is passed by the Missouri General Assembly.
The exam would test students’ knowledge of American government. But teachers and students question whether such a test would increase knowledge and create more informed voters.
“On paper, a citizenship test sounds like a good idea,” said Austin Reed, a civics teacher at Rock Bridge High School. “But, for most teachers, we think we’re doing a better job than the tests in our schools.”
Reed said he’s not against standardized testing, but the school system already requires a lot of exams. Tests can become overwhelming and inauthentic, asking for rote answers instead of testing thought processes and the ability to analyze, he said.
“If you just test kids, high school becomes this hoop that a kid has to jump through,” Reed said. “I want kids doing stuff that matters, that will help them in their lives, that will help them down the line.”
Reed’s civics studies curriculum focuses on teaching concepts and linking current events to big ideas. He said that at the end of the year each student picks a current issue in Columbia, researches it and discusses solutions.
A recent study by Annenberg Public Policy Center found 35 percent of Americans polled could not name all three branches of government. Only 27 percent knew it takes a two-thirds vote of the House and Senate to override a presidential veto.
Reed said he wasn’t surprised by the study, but he said Americans’ apparent lack of knowledge over specific data points doesn’t worry him. He said he would rather cover big ideas and teach kids how to think for themselves.
In the age of technology, he said, the way we learn and remember information has changed, and there is less need to store data in our heads.
“If you teach kids to think and find reliable information and analyze information and understand it, then they can look up the three branches of government on their smartphone, and they’ll have the skills to analyze that information and apply it,” Reed said.
Noah Mefrakis, a junior at Rock Bridge High School, said he took a government class in ninth grade. At the end of his government class, he said he had to take tests covering the Missouri state constitution and the U.S. Constitution as well as end-of-course exams and a semester final.
Mefrakis said by the end of high school, he and a lot of classmates will have lost some of their civics knowledge. He said that the test wouldn’t change that — they would just learn information for the test and begin to forget that knowledge once the test was over.
“I care a lot, and I think it’s really important for young adults to know how their country works and how it is run,” Mefrakis said.
In the end, Reed said changing what Americans know about government comes down to what students are taught and how they are treated.
“The way we fix this isn’t the way the Missouri Legislature wants it, to keep pounding ‘government’ and screaming at kids to memorize facts,” he said “The way to fix it is to teach kids to think and to empower them.”
