Saturday, January 24, 2009

Are you more civic literate than your elected representative?

I stumbled on this "civic literacy" quiz this last week. Actually, I think a friend shared it with me, but I'm not certain.

I'm suffering from e-mail miasma. It could have to do with those damn eye drops I've been writing about. (Yeah, sure, blame it on the eye drops....)

Anyway, the quiz is fun, challenging and humbling. You'll be able to compare your results with those of elected officials. That's the really scary part. You'll see why....

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1 Comments:

Blogger Chris Clair said...

An insightful and well-designed quiz. At first the "knowledge gap" amused me, then it bothered me. Finally I decided that elected officials ARE citizens, and that for good or ill there is no civics literacy test to determine who can run for office in the United States. By and large that's probably a good thing. In thinking about what life might be like if such a litmus test existed, consider the ridiculous standardized scholastic achievement tests we use to measure what students are learning and their effect on education. And by the way, as sad as the knowledge gap was, I found it equally sad that of more than 2,500 people surveyed, only 164 claimed to have held public office. That's a pretty poor cross section of "citizens."

12:16 PM  

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