In a November 4 op-ed in The Pueblo Chieftain, Jessica Peck Corry, director of the “free-market” think tank Independence Institute's Campus Accountability Project, claimed that “a survey conducted by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute's [ISI] National Civic Literacy Board" demonstrates a deficiency of “civic literacy” among the nation's college graduates. But Corry did not disclose ISI's free-market agenda, including the fact that the organization “seeks to enhance the rising generation's knowledge of our nation's founding principles -- limited government, individual liberty, personal responsibility, the rule of law, market economy, and moral norms,” as Colorado Media Matters has noted.

In her op-ed, Corry wrote, “We must know our history or we are doomed to repeat it. This often repeated phrase, plastered on the walls of college classrooms across America, is dissolving into little more than a forgotten platitude in the face of growing student civic illiteracy.” She added, “Unfortunately, Colorado's college [sic] and universities aren't immune. According to a recent national test, half of our college students can't adequately articulate key civic concepts, including basic freedoms defined under the Bill of Rights or famous civil rights cases that have led to a more equitable U.S. society.” Corry later continued:

As part of a survey conducted by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute's National Civic Literacy Board, researchers began their work with a simple question: “Is American higher education preparing students for lives as informed and engaged citizens?”

Researchers then contacted more than 14,000 randomly selected college freshmen and seniors at the selected institutions, including the University of Colorado and Colorado State University, and had them complete a 60 multiple-choice question test. The assessment was designed to measure knowledge in four key areas, including American history, government, America's relationship with the world and market economies.

While CU and CSU both saw student performance on the exam rise substantially between freshman and senior years, the overall numbers were still abysmal. CSU student performance rose from 40.6 percent to 51.5 percent between freshmen and seniors; CU performance rose from 39.7 percent to 48.6 in the same period.

If there is any good news to be gleaned from the findings, it is that both institutions fared well in this knowledge gain when compared to schools in other states.

Of the 50 institutions evaluated under “The Coming Crisis in Citizenship: Higher Education's Failure to Teach America's History and Institutions,” CSU ranked second in the amount of civic knowledge gained and the University of Colorado ranked close behind, at fifth.

While Colorado's colleges are obviously teaching students a thing or two about our country, we can't celebrate yet when one in two CU and CSU seniors still can't pass the test. The numbers were also paltry compared to top national institutions, including Princeton, Harvard, Yale and Georgetown, where students performed at nearly 70 percent, both during the freshman and senior years.

Corry also blamed the purported lack of civic knowledge on the political prejudices of higher-education leaders and “radical faculty members”:

Unfortunately, at our universities, particularly at CU, leaders have lost focus on the need to teach real knowledge of key historic and civic facts, caring more about perpetuating obtuse and largely subjective sociological theories like diversity and oppression.

CU Regent Tom Lucero has long championed the need to better educate our students concerning documented historic facts and quantifiable market variables. Unfortunately, however, his recent efforts to establish an academic department dedicated to such goals have been stalled by university administrators concerned only with appeasing radical faculty members who would rather preach than educate.

As Colorado Media Matters noted after Corry and Lucero touted the study as guests on the October 11 broadcast of KBDI Channel 12's Independent Thinking, the ISI evolved from two groups founded by well-known conservative writers and activists William Bennett and Irving Kristol. In addition to “enhanc[ing]” knowledge of “limited government” and the “market economy,” ISI states that its mission is to “further in successive generations of American college youth a better understanding of the economic, political, and spiritual values that sustain a free and virtuous society.” In fact, ISI defines "[m]oral [n]orms" -- among its six “principles of a free society” -- as the “values, customs, conventions, and norms of the Judeo-Christian tradition [that] inform and guide a free society,” and adds, “Without such ordinances, society induces its decay by embracing a relativism that rejects an objective moral order.”

Moreover, according to ISI's 2007 report, Failing Our Students, Failing America: Holding Colleges Accountable for Teaching America's History and Institutions, students were asked not only about American history and government, but also about “free market principles.” For example, a question from the ISI exam reads:

50) Free markets typically secure more economic prosperity than government's centralized planning because:

A. the price system utilizes more local knowledge of means and ends.

B. markets rely upon coercion, whereas government relies upon voluntary compliance with the law.

C. more tax revenue can be generated from free enterprise.

D. property rights and contracts are best enforced by the market system.

E. government planners are too cautious in spending taxpayers' money.

Furthermore, while claiming that administrators at the University of Colorado at Boulder (CU) have “stalled” Lucero's efforts to “better educate our students concerning documented historic facts and quantifiable market variables,” Corry neglected to mention that the ISI's 2007 report commended CU for being among several universities that have established academic centers “making an impact, promoting on the campuses they serve the best scholarship and teaching on America's intellectual heritage.” According to the report:

At a number of campuses across the country, faculty are working to address the dearth of civic knowledge demonstrated by the American civic literacy survey by establishing new academic centers or programs for the teaching of America's history and founding principles.

Established centers, such as Harvard University's Program in Constitutional Government, are invigorating efforts on their campuses. A new center was approved at Tufts University earlier this year, and other recently established centers/programs are already operating at the University of Chicago, the University of Colorado-Boulder, Emory University, Georgetown University, the University of Texas-Austin, and the University of Virginia.

These centers are making an impact, promoting on the campuses they serve the best scholarship and teaching on America's intellectual heritage.