“I think we are raising a generation of young Americans who are, to a very large degree,
historically illiterate.”
– David McCullough

 Two reports, The Nation's Report Card: U.S. History 2006 and The Nation's Report Card: Civics 2006, published in May 2007 by the National Center for Education Statistics, reveal important and troubling data about the achievement of U.S. students on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in history and civics. The National Council for the Social Studies is concerned, but not surprised, by the findings that America's 4th, 8^th, and 12th graders know only very slightly more about history and civics today than did such students in the 1990s. 

• The NAEP, which is commonly known as the “Nation's Report Card,” shows that less than one-quarter of America's students in grades four, eight, and twelve are proficient in American history.

• Many fourth-graders nationwide can’t identify the first permanent British settlement in the United States. A mere 1% of eighth-graders can explain how the fall of the Berlin Wall affected American foreign policy, and only nine percent know at least two causes of the Civil War.

• The NAEP “report card” on student achievement in U.S. history shows that 53% of twelfth graders are leaving high school with "below basic" knowledge of U.S. history, and just 27% are deemed proficient in civics.

 • More than half of high school seniors who took the most recent NAEP U.S. history test thought that Italy, Germany, or Japan was a U.S. ally in the Second World War.

 • A survey of college students at fifty-five elite colleges and universities found that more than a third were unable to identify the U.S. Constitution as establishing the division of power in our government and 40% could not place the Civil War in the correct half century. 

• Experts said the slight rise (since 1994) in fourth-grade scores might be linked to strenuous efforts to improve the teaching of reading in kindergarten through third grade. “Higher scores in fourth-grade history and civics go along with the recently reported higher reading scores,” said Karin Chenoweth, a writer for the Achievement Alliance and author of the book It's Being Done: Academic Success in Unexpected Schools. “In the last NAEP reading report (2006), fewer students—particularly African American and Latino students—scored below the basic level in the reading test, which means that more students are able to read and learn about history and civics. This could very well explain the higher history and civic scores at fourth grade, which are most pronounced among African American and Latino students.”

• The more education people have, the more likely they are to vote in presidential and congressional elections. In the 2000 presidential election, 70% of the U.S. voting-age citizen population (eighteen years of age and older) was registered to vote and 59% voted. Among these citizens, the more education a person possessed, the more likely that person was to be registered to vote . (National Center for Education Statistics).  

• Literary reading strongly correlates to other forms of active civic participation. Reading at Risk Survey, National Endowment of the Arts.