In addition to demonstrating a basic handling of speaking, reading and writing in English, federal immigration law requires prospective citizens to understand “the fundamentals of the history, and of the principles and form of government, of the United States.”
Do they? According to studies, over 40% of new immigrants aren’t proficient in even the most basic English, and many can’t speak it at all.
For years, the citizenship exam consisted of 100 questions, given to the applicants in advance, most of which were extraordinarily basic. An immigrant is only required to answer six of 10 questions to pass. The test entails queries such as: “We elect a U.S. Representative for how many years?” “Who vetoes bills?” “There were 13 original states. Name three.” “The words ‘Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness’ are in what founding document?”
By far, the toughest questions I could find were: “The House of Representatives has how many voting members?” and “What territory did the United States buy from France in 1803?” And a test taker can get them wrong and still pass easily.
The Trump administration recently announced it would make the citizenship test marginally more difficult by adding 28 questions that skew more toward history. Newcomers, though, must now answer 12 questions out of 20. When I went to high school, 60% on a math or history test meant you failed. Apparently, it’s good enough to become an American citizen. It’s no surprise that over 88% of applicants pass the naturalization test on their first try, and a total of 97% on the second.
The test is a reflection of a nation that doesn’t take assimilation very seriously. This is unsurprising, considering how little Americans really understand about the nation’s history. The citizenship test is probably on a sixth-grade level. Yet, one national poll by the Institute for Citizens & Scholars found that only about 36% of Americans were able to pass a multiple-choice version of the naturalization exam. The younger you are, the less likely it is that you’d pass. And I don’t mean younger as in elementary-school age. In 2018, a survey found that only about 19% of Americans under 45 could pass. Considering the direction that public and higher education have taken since then, that number has almost surely declined.
Education is no panacea. It doesn’t magically induce anyone to embrace the values of the republic. At this point, our universities are only a hindrance to building a healthy citizenry. There are, right now, an untold number of professors at institutions of higher learning – not to mention editorialists at leading papers like The New York Times – who could ace any citizenship test and still want to destroy the system with their hare-brained ideas. But surely mass ignorance of fundamental principles and mechanisms of American governance corrodes the ability of the electorate to debate these issues and comprehend the limits of state power. There are millions of students who don’t have the ability to reject founding principles because they don’t even understand them to begin with.
One of the central motivations for creating public schools by 19th-century reformers was to ensure that an increasingly diverse population, with many new immigrants, could be molded into a citizenry that was capable of sustaining the republic. Education was not “more than an ability to read, write, and keep common accounts,” Horace Mann argued. It was a means of ensuring that everyone shared a set of overarching principles that allowed us to function as a free and moral people.
In my experience, a high school senior is far more likely to walk away from public school believing that the most vital idea in American life is “sustainability,” not liberty. Some of you would be horrified reading a high school history textbook these days.
State-run public schools have often become incubators for our worst ideas. Schools stress engagement and activism – the rituals of left-wing political life. These things have little to do with republican virtues of self-restraint and virtuous behavior. The importance of property, fostering independence, and the local community isn’t celebrated. Politics has taken over much of our lives. The modern public school system is a failure.
It’s depressing to think that newcomers often have a better comprehension of our history and political institutions. That’s not all that matters when it comes to assimilation, but it isn’t insignificant. What’s even more depressing is that their children are barely going to learn about it at the local public school. How can we expect immigrants to embrace American values when we don’t?
David Harsanyi is a senior writer at the Washington Examiner. Harsanyi is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of five books – the most recent, “The Rise of Blue Anon,” available now.
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Well David you hit the nail on the head when you said some of us would be horrified in reading a high school history textbook. I was going to ask the same question what in the world are we teaching our next upcoming generation. I don’t know but pray the private and charter schools are doing a better job in teaching kids real history.
I agree with the disgraceful lowering the bar on English and Citizenship tests being wrong. Another disgraceful disgusting thing being allowed by our government is allowing criminals, people who are only loyal to anti-American countries, and cheating married men who sleep with foreign spies to be members of Congress. How were they sworn in? If they lied during the swearing in are they even legal members at all? Shouldn’t they just be removed?
Since the news media fails to report everything voters may never hear about the guy who has been sharing with his foreign spy lover, the ones who say they are in congress to represent a country that is an enemy of the USA, and the criminals for money get re-elected. I think that ballots should give voting records – WHAT EACH ONE VOTED FOR AND AGAINST in previous terms and the things (noted above)that should bar then from Congress.
People who vote even though they have no idea of what they are voting for should have been included in the article. They are NOT embracing American values.
We do not expect any such thing from them. Diversity and multi culti in action.
What he did not say is most immigrants that come here do not take a citizen test
They are either here by chain immigration or are illegal and never want to become a citizen in the first place
That’s why I see so many ads in Spanish any more and why 30 percent of our public school kids are now Hispanic. And that’s probably why most of them don’t know American history.
I just retired from the public schools here. They are more interested in numbers then in teaching. They graduate kids who don’t meet the standards to do so. It is such a joke here. The sad part is no one in Arkansas cares about it.
AMEN, brah! Just hazarding a guess, but I can well imagine most folks born here now could NOT pass the citizenship exam. The education system here has slipped that far, IMHO.
I have two granddaughters and get to watch a lot of useless unrealistic and often rather violent animated TV shows. A few, very few live shows for children are educational, Why can’t we have entertaining shows for children that teach history, the constitution, bill of rights, how government works, etc. You could even teach the test on TV and not only help immigrants know more about our country. If you can follow Dora, you’ll be able to Do It and probably learn something you don’t know.