America's civics crisis means too many students don't even know the Declaration of Independence

Only 60 percent of American 8th graders have a basic understanding of U.S. history, according to the new Nation’s Report Card scores recently released, and only 13 percent of them are proficient in the subject. Roughly three in every ten of them lack a basic understanding of civics.

In context, this means that much of the rising generation likely doesn’t know who wrote the Declaration of Independence or why the Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution. They cannot tell you the reasons each side fought the Civil War or in which war the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.

They don’t know about Congressional veto power or how the Electoral College works. (All of these examples are pulled from sample Nation’s Report Card questions.)