Abdul: Why Hoosiers need a citizenship test
Abdul-Hakim Shabazz
In my younger days, as a single man, I once cut a date short when the woman I was having dinner with told me she thought the English Channel was a British cable station, Taco Bell was a Latin American phone company and Louis Armstrong was the first black man to walk on the moon.
A pre-date civic exam could have saved me a lot of grief, and $50.
Fast forward 15 years, and a couple of pieces of legislation working their way through the Indiana General Assembly would practically have done that. SB 269 and HB 1296 would require high school students to pass a civics/citizenship test to graduate or get a GED. Sen. Dennis Kruse of Auburn and Rep. Tim Wesco of Osceola authored the bills.
Be still my beating heart. There is nothing that makes a political commentator happier than something, which if done right, could raise the intelligence, level of engagement and tone of public discourse.
I know a lot of you have "test fatigue" when it comes to public education, but hear me out on this one.
How many times have we complained about the level of civic awareness? My conservative friends frequently lament about "low-information" voters. My more liberal friends equate some of those on the other end of the spectrum as "political Neanderthals," if they believed in evolution. So what's the cure? A politically smarter populace. And SB 269 and HB 1296 are two ways to get there.
More important, how can we truly appreciate our nation if we don't know our history or how it works? How can we fully appreciate our rights if we don't know what our rights are? And how can you effectively communicate with your elected officials if you don't even know who they are?
You can't.
Opponents of the legislation, such as Superintendent of Public Instruction Glenda Ritz, tell lawmakers that we already test on these subjects in the 5th, 8th and 12th grades, so there is no need for another test.
However, when the Intercollegiate Studies Institute did a 2008 survey of Americans' civic literacy, the average score was 49 percent; college-educated adults scored 55 percent. I got 90 percent right, but I chalk that up to not fully reading a couple of the questions.
We regularly test students for English, math and verbal skills, but when it comes to social studies we don't go nearly as far. The result tends to be an uninformed electorate that abdicates its responsibility to hold government accountable, and the political class, of which I am a member, can operate virtually unchecked. That is not healthy for democracy.
What is healthy for democracy is ensuring that citizens understand the basics of their government. We can then have an intelligent discussion about what its proper role should be, and we aren't just shouting political claptrap and talking points at each other.
And a more informed electorate can also translate into more participation at the polls.
Now this isn't to say that someone who knows the role the Anti-Federalists played in the drafting of our Constitution will automatically go to the polls, but I'm willing to bet that those individuals are more likely to do their homework before they cast a vote. They thereby make a much more informed decision and we get a better government, overall.