PHILADELPHIA — A sizable portion of the American public seems to show little interest in the fabric of the country’s government and history, a new survey finds.
Researchers at the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) surveyed over 1,000 American adults, finding a shocking lack of knowledge as it pertains to U.S. politics among the general populace.
Fifty-three percent of respondents believed the falsehood that illegal immigrants aren’t granted any constitutional rights, while 37 percent couldn’t even name a single right endowed by the First Amendment.
Thankfully, 48 percent of those surveyed were able to identify freedom of speech as being a right enshrined by the First Amendment, although far fewer could identify other rights accorded.
These include freedom of religion (15 percent), freedom of the press (14 percent), right of peaceful assembly (10 percent), and right to petition the government (three percent).
“Protecting the rights guaranteed by the Constitution presupposes that we know what they are. The fact that many don’t is worrisome,” says Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania, in a press release. “These results emphasize the need for high-quality civics education in the schools and for press reporting that underscores the existence of constitutional protections.”
Meanwhile, only 26 percent of Americans could name all three branches of the federal government — that would be the executive, legislative, and judicial, for those playing at home.
While conservatives were more likely to be able to name all three branches than liberals or moderates, the overall proportion of the public that can name all three has fallen by 12 percent since 2011.
Perhaps most embarrassing: a full third of respondents couldn’t name a single federal branch of government, a figure that hasn’t shifted over the past half-decade.
As for the rights of illegal immigrants, a majority of conservatives (67 percent) believed that illegal aliens were not provided any legal recourse, compared to slight minorities of moderates (48 percent) and liberals (46 percent).
In reality, illegal immigrants residing in the U.S. are usually afforded a number of rights, including protection under the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.
On another note, it’s somewhat surprising that a significant minority of respondents believed that one could be denied rights on the basis of their religion (e.g., if they were Muslim or atheist).
The poll’s findings have a sampling error of about 3.7 percentage points.
That’s because you sampled 50% illegal immigrants that could give a rat’s ass about the USA
School teachers want to make more money??? Teach more USEABLE subjects.
Thank Obama for that…dumbed down a generation of citizens. Not sure if we can recover from illiterate millennials.
Just one more fine example of how our unionized teachers are helping to dumb down future generations.
They’ll be well versed in Bradley has two daddy’s, or how to perform various sexual acts, and how white men are to blame for everything wrong in America, but not so much on civics, or how our country works.
Nice going.
WHy would anyone ever defend a system or country they do not understand? But then, I guess that is the entire point and purpose of the democratic party.
Shows how bad education in America is failing.
When teachers are more concerned about their union obligations, and partying than their classes that is what happens
They’re the Nina the Pinta and the Santa Maria, right?
The dumber the populous, the smarter I appear.
The major drawback is that the majority of these ignoramuses will be voting for our future politicians.
I can ! The EPA, Welfare Office and Obamacare !
I bet most of the 26 percent that know the 3 branches of government are older than 40. Maybe they should start teaching American History instead of Johnny wants to be a Jill now and that’s okay.
This is what Democrats are counting on, a low-information, clueless society that believes they will be given everything for free.
That’s an easy question. The three branches of our government are the CIA, NSA and FBI. You were expecting executive, legislative and judicial? It hasn’t been that way in more than 16 years.
Most Americans are products of Government schools. Another government fail.
I’d love to see the results of a “man-on-the-street” survey on this, but I’ll bet well over 95% of Americans don’t know where America’s founders got the idea for 3 branches of government.
(Isaiah 33:22)
When the Carter Admin created the Dept of Education one of their first orders of business was to remove civics from the curriculum of most public schools. That effectively ended teaching our children how the government works, along with teaching them what their rights and responsibilities as American citizens are. Then they removed any meaningful American history so our children were not taught about patriotism and love of country…ALL of this was purposely done in order to dumb down society enough that convincing many that capitalism and conservatism are evil…
Who knew that Idiocracy was a prophetic documentary?
As a past high school physics teacher, I can say that this survey is not surprising. We need a fundamental change in our education system.
This is an indictment of America’s Education Industry, a division of AFL-CIO.
Shffttt! Obama is the only branch of guv’ment I needs to know.