Arizona just passed legislation which requires students to pass the same civics and history test that immigrants must take to become naturalized citizens if they want to graduate from high school. (WaPo) (legislation).
This is a really stupid idea. First off, the people who wrote it require that the student answer correctly 60 out of the 100 questions on the citizenship test. However, what they don't realize is that when people are interviewed for citizenship, they are asked only 10 questions, selected at random (by computer) from the 100 questions. Of course, an applicant has to study all 100 questions, but the actual test itself is rather short.
Arizona, however apparently wants to administer a test which has ALL ONE HUNDRED questions:
… a pupil must correctly answer at least sixty of the one hundred questions listed on a test that is identical to the civics portion of the naturalization test used by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Of course, it's possible that the Arizona legislators didn't understand the procedures for naturalization, seeing as they seem to think that all 100 questions are asked of each applicant. In fact, once applicants answer six questions correctly, the test stops.
Second, there is a fundamental lack of understanding of how the naturalization test is administered. It is not a written test like the SAT or whatever monstrosity "No Child Left Behind" (aarrrgggHHH!) has heaped, unfunded on the local school districts. What happens is that the applicant for examination is tested individually by the USCIS interviewer, who simply reads the randomly-selected questions to the applicant, then writes down the answers. There isn't any written test of the fill-in-the-blank variety that exists.
Third, there is, of course, no source of funding voted by the Arizona legislature to do all this. Applicants for naturalization pay $585 to file their naturalization application, plus an extra $85 for fingerprint checks. That money pays to process their application, and while not all of it is necessary to administer the history and civics test, certainly some of it is necessary to pay for personnel time, including training the interviewers to properly administer the test.
Not surprisingly this seems to have been largely a Republican-backed measure. And as you know, you can't spell C-R-A-Z-Y without R-AZ.
Fourth -- the freakin' citizenship test is wrong -- a lot. Or when it's not wrong, it's so simplistic that critical thinking must be suspended. Of course, maybe this is a feature and not a bug. More below the Squiggle of Doom.
The USCIS naturalization test is here, and while answers that vary from the suggested ones can be treated as correct, USCIS gives this caution (bold in the original):
Although USCIS is aware that there may be additional correct answers to the 100 civics questions, applicants are encouraged to respond to the civics questions using the answers provided below.
Short version: don't bother us with anything fancy.
Question 74: Name one problem that led to the Civil War. Acceptable answers are:
-- slavery
-- economic reasons
-- states’ rights
"State's rights" and "economic reasons"? Those were just lame excuses for the war, which was caused by the question of whether slaveholding should be extended to the territories of the United States.
76. What did the Emancipation Proclamation do? Acceptable answers include:
-- freed the slaves
-- freed slaves in the Confederacy
-- freed slaves in the Confederate states
-- freed slaves in most Southern states
None of those are correct. The Emancipation Proclamation only applied to those parts of the Confederacy which were not under the control of Union forces. So it "freed" exactly no one. What it did was announce that wherever the Union armies went, slavery would be destroyed. A proper response would be "a wartime measure which was intended to coerce the South into giving up the rebellion, which, if accepted, would have permitted slavery to continue."
37. What does the judicial branch do? Acceptable answers include:
-- reviews laws
-- explains laws
-- resolves disputes (disagreements)
-- decides if a law goes against the Constitution
Of these, the only one specifically provided for in the Constitution is the power to resolve disputes. All other functions, such as determining whether a law is in violation of the constitution, require a genuine dispute, as the courts are not empowered to issue advisory opinions or indeed, do anything unless they are addressing a case or controversy.
36. What are two cabinet-level positions? Acceptable responses include the attorney general, and the various department secretaries and also ...
-- the vice president.
Huh? The vice-president's sole constitutional task is to preside over the Senate, and be around to succeed the president should he or she die or become unable to serve. The vice president does not serve at the pleasure of the president, and so is different, constitutionally from all other offices on the list.
52. What do we show loyalty to when we say the Pledge of Allegiance? Acceptable answers include:
-- the United States
-- the flag
If its the constitution we're talking about here, there is no mention of the Pledge of Allegiance, which shouldn't be surprising, considering that the Pledge was not written until 1892.
And who is the "we"? Does it mean everyone? If so, bear in mind that the government has no authority to coerce anyone into saluting the flag (West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943). The question seems to assume that the flag salute is universally accepted, when in fact it is definitely not.
Unfunded and ignorant as this legislation may be, look for it to be coming to your (Republican) legislature soon.