What Do Our 17-Year Olds Know?: A Report on the First National Assessment of History and Literature [Paperback]

Diane Ravitch (Author), Chester E., Jr. Finn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1988

What Do Our 17-Year-Olds Know? Gives the results of the first nationwide test of American high school students' knowledge of history and literature, as well as fascinating insight into what teenagers are reading, how much television they watch, what influence their home environment has on their academic achievement, and what historical topics and literary works are included in (or have been dropped from) the school curriculum.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This addresses some of the same issues as Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind ( LJ 5/1/87) and E. D. Hirsch, Jr.'s Cultural Literacy ( LJ 6/1/87), but with less crankiness. All three books agree that history and literature need to be re-emphasized in curriculums. The present work focuses on 11th grade youngsters and the results of the first national test of students' knowledge of history and literature, funded by the NEH. It goes behind the scores to identify factors in higher achievement, and includes recommendations for teaching. A thoughtful, objective work by two distinguished authors. Recommended. Annette V. Janes, Director Hamilton P.L., Mass.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Harpercollins (September 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 006091520X
• ISBN-13: 978-0060915209
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,736,750 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Diane Ravitch

I was born in Houston, Texas, in 1938. I am third of eight children. I attended the public schools in Houston from kindergarten through high school (San Jacinto High School, 1956, yay!). I then went to Wellesley College, where I graduated in 1960.

Within weeks after graduation from Wellesley, I married. The early years of my marriage were devoted to raising my children. I had three sons: Joseph, Steven, and Michael. Steven died of leukemia in 1966. I now have three grandsons, Nico, Aidan, and Elijah.

I began working on my first book in the late 1960s. I also began graduate studies at Columbia University. My mentor was Lawrence A. Cremin, a great historian of education. The resulting book was a history of the New York City public schools, called "The Great School Wars," published in 1974. I received my Ph.D. in the history of American education in 1975. In 1977, I wrote "The Revisionists Revised." In 1983 came "The Troubled Crusade." In 1985, "The Schools We Deserve." In 1987, with my friend Checker Finn, "What Do Our 17-Year-Olds Know?" In 1991, "The American Reader." In 1995, "National Standards in American Education." In 2000, "Left Back." In 2003, "The Language Police." In 2006, "The English Reader," with my son Michael Ravitch. Also in 2006, "Edspeak." I have also edited several books with Joseph Viteritti.

I am very excited about my latest book: "The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education." It has received wide attention because it speaks to the most important education issues of our time. I hope it will change the national conversation about school reform and encourage people to recognize how difficult it is to build and sustain good schools. Those who read the book should be inspired to thank a teacher for the hard and important work they do every day.

To learn more about my speaking events and to see reviews of "The Death and Life of the Great American School System," visit my webpage at www.dianeravitch.com. The webpage also contains a choice selection from the hundreds of letters I have received from readers.

Diane Ravitch

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars 25 Years Later December 18, 2012

By SS Ranto

Format:Hardcover

Diane Ravitch and Chester Finn assessed high school seniors' grasp of American history and literature in their classic book, What Do Our 17-Year-Olds Know, released in 1987. The conclusions of What Do Our 17-Year-Olds Know may be more relevant today than they were 25 years ago. Ravitch and Finn write about the amount of information available to the average teenager. Today's students are even more bombarded with information--from computers and cell phones--nonexistent in 1987.

"But can they make sense of what they see and hear? Do they have the perspective to separate what is important from what is trivial? What is durable from what is ephemeral? Can they interpret the significance of the day's news? Are they able to discern patterns of trends and events? Are they capable of introspection? Can they relate their experiences to universal themes that have been explored by great writers through the ages? These are only a few of the potential benefits of the study of history and literature" (P.202).

Ravitch and Finn found that students scored poorly in their understanding of history and literature. Things are worse now. Students, especially boys, read less today than they did in the 1980s, and their corresponding amount of knowledge has shrunk further.

Thus the answer to all of Ravitch and Finn's questions above would be an emphatic "no!" Only the elite, perhaps the top 20 percent of graduating California high school seniors can separate the wheat from the chafe and put their experience in a larger context and make sense of the world around them. I find these kids in our Advanced Placement (college-level) program.

Once we have mastered literacy concerns the history itself may be understood. So literacy becomes a part of most lessons. I ask the students to define vocabulary. "What does this mean?" and I put vocabulary words on tests. Secondly, most students need assistance understanding most high school World and U.S. History textbooks. They cannot decipher textbooks on their own, so teacher summaries and read-alouds, pair-share, and teacher-monitored jigsaws of reading materials are essential.

Third, Ravitch and Finn write about the need to include chronology in history lessons, giving the curriculum more meaning by putting it into context with other historical facts they may (we hope) know. This is even more important today. I enjoy creating parallel timelines that show world and American history in sequence. Most male students are interested in transportation, Stephenson's Rocket to the Model T, weaponry, the musket to the M-16, and technology, the typewriter to the PC, so add those categories on your timelines.

Adults Acting Like Adults

Ravitch and Finn are squarely against "romantic" practices such as letting adolescents learn what they want to learn--the view that naturalness is good and schools should provide freedom where children can develop naturally. Instead, Ravitch and Finn concede that children do not

"...naturally gravitate to academic subjects or spontaneously immerse themselves in the lore of their civilization. Children are often not the best judges of what they need to do and know. In general, we believe that children learn pretty much what the important adults in their lives make a point in seeing that they learn: in school, at home, and through a myriad of other means" (P. 203).

A lot is at stake. "Failure to make this cultural knowledge part of every child's inheritance serves to reinforce invidious social class distinctions (P. 235)." In other words, those who favor social justice and equality should demand that all children learn America's historical canon.

4 of 7 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars A Sham August 14, 2007

By D. E. Mulcahy

Format:Paperback

1 star is too generous for a book that posses as a report but is a collection of unsubstantiated opinions based on a multiple choice test that would render any freshman in his/her quantitative research course an F-. For example, there exists no bibliography or endnotes. Neither is there a useful description of rudimentary elements of the study, such as how and where students were selected. We are simply told there were 8000 students "divided up by region (i.e., northeast, central, west, and southeast) and by size and type of community." We are not told of how groups were assigned within the study or if this was even a consideration.
There are tables of correct and incorrect scores, percentages and assigned letter grades but no discussion of validity or reliability, either internal or external, nor is there any mention of the study's generalizability. While there is a description of the questions, there is no actual list of the questions on the test, nor any indication of where they could be found. The only thing we know about how the questions were derived is that they were discarded by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)and used by Ravitch and Finn. (Ravitch should formally disown this project)
The likelihood that this collection of discarded questions could generate a reliable and valid test is laughable. Indeed, one should probably question the likelihood that the results of such a collection is capable of telling us much of anything at all--except, perhaps, that Harvard and Columbia may need to require more credits on the rudiments of quantitative research.

1 of 6 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Find this book and read it March 13, 2003

By Don McNay

Format:Hardcover

A groundbreaking book when it came out.

For the past 20 years, Chester Finn has been a behind the scenes and in some cases, in front of the crowd leader for most of the great education reforms that have occurred in the past 20 years. Having had the great fortune to be one of Finn's students at Vanderbilt many years ago, I have had a chance to read the plethora of great books and articles that Finn has published. This is another in that series. Don't just buy this book and The Educated Child (which apparently is a huge bestseller) go back and buy all his books. Finn is a great academic who is blessed with an ability to communicate to the common person.

Finn may talk about the education that children receive but he is the best educator a parent can ever find.

Don McNay...