Those 'extremely proud' to be an American drops to historic low: survey shows

Those 'extremely proud' to be an American drops to historic low: survey shows

The number of people who say that they are "extremely proud to be an American" has dropped to a historic low, the Gallup poll shows.

A CNN report showed surveys about attitudes Americans have during the 246th anniversary of Independence Day reveal levels of pride have continued to fall since 2017. After Sept. 11, 2001, for example, American pride increased to 91 percent, whereas in 2017 it plummeted to 75 percent. It has dropped another ten percent in the past five years.

While "extremely" and "very proud" numbers remain high, the number of people "extremely proud" is what reached a historic low for the 21st century.

The other piece of the survey asked some of the questions that are on the U.S. Citizenship Questionnaire. While people applying for citizenship must know the answers, native-born Americans apparently don't.

A YouGov explained, that there are 100 citizenship questions and an applicant must get 6 out of 10 correct. Using an online study tool, people can practice with 20 randomly chosen questions on the website. What they've found is that 91 percent of citizenship applicants pass the test, while four in five (about 85 percent) Americans pass it.

That means "they answer at least 12 out of 20 questions correctly — or at least 60%, the proportion of correct answers needed to pass the real test," the site explained.

Older people are more likely to pass the test as civics classes were once more of a priority in schools.

The 2018 Brown Center Report on American Education outlined the status of civics education compared to that of math and reading scores, which has increased over the past decades.

"While 42 states and the District of Columbia require at least one course related to civics, few states prioritize the range of strategies, such as service learning which is only included in the standards for 11 states, that is required for an effective civic education experience," The Brookings Institute explained. "The study also found that high school social studies teachers are some of the least supported teachers in schools and report teaching larger numbers of students and taking on more non-teaching responsibilities like coaching school sports than other teachers. Student experience reinforces this view that civic learning is not a central concern of schools. Seventy percent of 12th graders say they have never written a letter to give an opinion or solve a problem and 30 percent say they have never taken part in a debate—all important parts of a quality civic learning."

A 2016 survey by Annenberg Public Policy Center revealed that 1in 4 Americans are unable to name the three branches of government. The Pew Research Center revealed that as of March 2019, only 17 percent of Americans trust the government in Washington to do the right thing.

See the brief segment on CNN below:

Those 'extremely proud' to be an American drops to historic low: survey shows youtu.be