Facts eluded presidential candidate Rick Santorum when he took aim at the history curriculums at California’s universities Monday.
“I was just reading something last night from the state of California,” Santorum said at a campaign stop in Wisconsin. “And that the California universities — I think it’s seven or eight of the California system of universities don’t even teach an American history course. It’s not even available to be taught.”
UC Berkeley history professor Robin Einhorn, who is teaching a course titled “The United States from Civil War to Present” this semester, called Santorum’s claim “completely, laughably false.”
Santorum’s campaign headquarters could not be reached to clarify what Santorum was reading, but a perusal of course catalogs from the University of California, California State University and California Community Colleges reveals a plethora of courses focusing on U.S. history.
Each of the state’s 112 community college campuses offers a course in U.S. history, according to community college spokesperson Paige Marlatt-Dorr.
At the UC and CSU, all undergraduates must take a U.S. history course in order to graduate, UC and CSU spokespeople said.
However, an April report released by the privately funded conservative think tank California Association of Scholars states that students at four UC campuses can “achieve a bachelor’s degree without doing any coursework in science, mathematics, a foreign language, economics, literature, or the history and institutions of their country. Those four include the Berkeley campus.”
Whether Santorum was referring specifically to that report in his statements has not been confirmed.
“You can take broad surveys or more specialized courses on particular time periods or themes,” Einhorn said. “Every Cal student knows this, and anyone else can also know by checking the catalogs, helpfully available online.”
The only UC campus not to offer a U.S. history course is UC San Francisco — a medical school.
The UC Berkeley department of history has garnered national recognition for the education it provides in U.S. history. In its most recent ranking of graduate-level history programs, US News and World Report ranked the department fourth in the academic subfield of modern U.S. history.
Santorum’s remark comes about a month after he called President Barack Obama a “snob” for wanting all Americans to go to college.
On the campaign trail, Santorum has frequently criticized the nation’s higher education institutions and, on one occasion, called them “indoctrination mills.”
He has also said that parents should control their children’s education, and if elected he would home-school his seven children in the White House.
Curan Mehra covers higher education.
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He has also said that parents should control their children’s education, and if elected he would home-school his seven children in the White House.”
If his so-called education led to this….his kids are going to end up in REAL trouble..
This article made a cameo on Tuesday night’s Colbert Report (cited in the discussion about UCSF): http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/411675/april-03-2012/rick-santorum-speaks-from-his-heart—california-colleges
Way to go, Daily Cal!
[Just you wait Nunya Beeswax, now that Stan can't come up with a reasonable response]
You’re late to the party, I came up with the response some time back. He misspoke, but the fact of the matter is that your typical left-leaning Cal type blathering about “democracy” clearly hasn’t learned a few basic facts about the founding of our country, which does support his point, that it is possible to get through the California educational system from Kindergarten to graduating from a UC and still be quite clueless about a number of things. There are a lot of areas where Santorum is completely off-base, but in this case he does have a point. Every time I hear nonsense about the Democratic Party being the primary supporters of 1960′s civil rights legislation, or people arguing that the decision to count slaves as 3/5 of a person for the purposes of proportional representation in Congress was done to “dehumanize” blacks, or that our government is based on a “democracy” instead of a Constitutional republic, it’s quite clear how many of you oh-so-educated-and-enlightened liberals are just so plain butt-ignorant and wrong on so much. Sorry that hits too close to home for a lot of you, but there are plenty
of Cal grads who seemed to get more in the way left-leaning political
indoctrination than any real understanding of basic US history or how
our government works.
History class was great for me at Berkeley. But I understand why some conservatives don’t like it. History is written by the victors, not the vanquished. So it is very subjective. The variety of historians…from Howard Zinn(history of the peoples) to Frederick Jackson Turner (American frontier thesis)…can occupy a presidential debate.
hi school us history. community college us govt, local history, us gov’t. history of law. sociology of law( supreme case examine and review ), Cal , history of American constitutional law, poly sci-constitutional law i want to study more law to consider myself a fairly well educate young man with a sense of the importance with a history of philosophy,
I don’t feel the report is terribly constructive. Every major at UC Berkeley has some sort of “breadth requirement” along with prerequisites related to the major. For my engineering major, that was math and sciences. Outside of that, the breadth requirements could be met many number of ways, but I don’t get the point of making it overly broad.
I’m not even sure it would be that great an idea to have that many individual requirements. UC Berkeley is on the semester system. If you had those six requirements of 4 semester units each, that’s already more than 3/4 of an entire year.
Heck – I remember my breadth requirement in engineering didn’t even include any of the lower division Oriental Languages classes. There were quite a few native Chinese speakers who would have aced those classes. I did take quite a few humanities classes, but only because I found them interesting. I never took a single foreign language class nor a history class (already made the requirement).
He’s going to homeschool his kids in the White House. You know, with all that free time he’ll have.
“An astounding proportion of
students are progressin through higher education today without measurable gains
in general skills” is the anguished conclusion of a respected national study,
entitled appropriately Academically
Adrift.2 Further,
students now spend on average little time studying outside the classroom, and
the demands made of them by their facultyteachers h ave been correspondingly reduced.
Is it possible that the University of California
is an exception to these national trends? Unfortunately, we can be certain that
it is not. First, these national studies all include California, and none of them note any
fundamental differences across states. Second, local studies of these issues
always confirm the findings of the national studies. For example, the national finding that
students now spend relatively little time studying outside the classroom has
been confirmed by a study specific to UC that reached identical conclusions. A
recent study of higher education in California
concludes: “The California
that many like to think of as a leader in higher education is average at best
and trending in the wrong direction.”
(emphasis added) A Crisis of Confidence http://www.nas.org/images/documents/A_Crisis_of_Competence.pdf
Readers
of Sex on Tuesday have ample
anecdotal evidence that Cal Students have no time for studies. http://www.dailycal.org/opinion/opinion-columns/
Not that the current president get his basic facts about the number of states in the U.S. wrong or anything. Similar type of mistake. He made a mistake. Get over it and move on.
I’m voting for Santorum in the primary
“I think it’s seven or eight of the California system of universities
don’t even teach an American history course. It’s not even available to
be taught.”
Sorry, but you just can’t spin that as anything but an inaccurate and ignorant statement. That’s what it comes down to. And this is far from the first time Rick Santorum has opened his mouth to insert his foot. Hell, you just can’t buy comedy like this–it’s a gift from a loving and benevolent God. :)
Well, Obama said he’d campaigned in 57 states. I don’t see how you can spin that as anything but an inaccurate and ignorant statement either. Sure, Santorum misstated what the report said. But that doesn’t mean he is inherently ignorant.
Isn’t it interesting that when someone criticizes Santorum, you immediately assume he must be an apologist for Obama?
He’s merely bringing up an example of selective indignation of the left, which will seize any opportunity to jump on gaffes or misstatements about Republicans or conservatives while carrying water for their own.
That phenomenon is hardly confined to “the left”–and Obama is only “the left” by comparison to his opponents, many of whom supported similar policies to his before he was elected. Very little of this is about principles; it’s just more wrangling over which brand gets to wield the power.
OK, what do you think when you hear these Occupy types scream about “democracy” when anyone with a clue knows that our country was founded as a Constitutional republic? It would certainly suggest that a number of individuals make it all the way through to the UC system (and beyond in some cases) without learning some of the most fundamental facts regarding our country’s history. So Santorum does have at least one valid point: a considerable percentage of Cal students don’t know a whole lot about US history or our form of government. Once again, who are the ignorant ones here?
It’s one thing to misspeak or make a careless mistake, but another to be clearly ignorant. You seem to have a rather difficult time yourself differentiating between the two, especially when your own views cloud your judgement.
As you well know, there are several meanings for the word “democracy”. In one usage, the word signifies a form of government in which supreme power is vested in the people and is exercised by them either directly or through elected representatives. A constitutional republic is one form of democracy under such a definition. A more narrow, and in terms of political theory more technical, definition is the exercise by the people of the right of referendum over every issue (cf. Athens in the Classical era). I’d be the first to admit that the Occupy folks use the term sloppily and loosely, and that the sort of democracy they want just isn’t workable in a large nation-state. Unsurprisingly, the ideologues at the heart of that movement would prefer a loose federation of smaller governmental units to the federated republic of states which we have, but that’s a separate issue.
It’s hard to see Santorum’s statement as equivalent in any way to the political sloganeering of the Occupy movement (about which I have very mixed feelings, by the way)–unless you mean to imply that in both cases factual accuracy takes a back seat to ideology. But this is nothing new for Santorum–he has attacked Obama’s religious beliefs on the grounds that they aren’t based on the Bible, apparently completely blind to the fact that the Roman Church (of which he is a member) requires its adherents to believe a number of dogmas for which there is no Scriptural foundation.
I’m sorry, but Santorum shows himself to be CLEARLY ignorant here; this wasn’t a “careless mistake” but a complete and total lie. By the way, Santorum knows sh*t all about this country’s history himself, as his disdain for the separation of church and state reveals. YOu frankly look like a f*cking loser for defending him
Care to deal with particulars, or are you merely foaming?
I like how you just question other people’s particulars, but when you post a response providing no particulars you tell people to go find them for themselves or “they’re ignorant”.
”
I was just reading something last night…”
And it probably started with “RE: RE: RE: RE: PLEASE FORWARD!!!!!”
So, college was good enough for Santorum, a Penn State grad, but it’s not good for anyone else including his own children? It didn’t hurt Rick did it? Even Sarah Palin went to college (at two or three schools) and got indoctrinated in Communications an Journalism. Look how well she turned out as a liberal and intelligent elitist!
[So, college was good enough for Santorum, a Penn State grad, but it's not good for anyone else including his own children?]
Uh, did he ever actually say that? Or are you getting all teary-eyed and indignant about something he never said, because you’re a gullible sucker willing to uncritically believe everything you see and hear? This is the same game being played over and over by the Left: distort what others say then feign outrage and moral indignation. Sorry, but some of us see right through that charade.
And for the record, I don’t know about other conservatives, but I’m no fan of Rick Santorum (and in all likelihood I will be casting my vote for Mitt Romney in November). At the same time, I try to actually criticize others for what they actually say and do, not some silly fabrication by the usual activists who lack any shred of moral or intellectual honesty…
Tony, I have seen your many replies on this article and for someone that claims to not “agree with all of Santorum’s views and opinions,” you sure have drawn a line in the sand to support him even though he obviously said something that is not true. There is no spin here. There is simply an incorrect statement by the candidate. The truth and facts are that he took information from a report, that many feel is a questionable report, and then proceeded to inaccurately state what the report said. Claiming that it is simply a leftest smear campaign does not change the fact that he said something that is not true, no matter if he thought it was or not.
I implore you, please practice what you preach and think critically about what the facts are. Assuming it is a leftest smear without analyzing the facts of the situation and the statement made is not thinking critically.
[Tony, I have seen your many replies on this article and for someone that
claims to not "agree with all of Santorum's views and opinions," you
sure have drawn a line in the sand to support him even though he
obviously said something that is not true.]
Since you’re not sharp enough to get the point, kindly allow me to illustrate it for you. Have you ever considered that the reason I’m “supporting him” is because maybe what you and others are CLAIMING to have said isn’t true either?
I read the actual quote that everyone got worked over, and what he basically said is that not everyone needs to go to college, or should go to college – a point that I happen to agree with, as it makes common sense, since not everyone is intellectually capable, academically prepared, or even interested in attending college. His statement was in the context of public education, where he indicated that the public schools should prove more emphasis on some form of vocational training as opposed to this assumption that every student should be on some form of college prep track.
This is hardly controversial, nor is it contradictory to what many professional educators see as a suitable role for the public education system. However, the usual suspects, who view all political discourse through the filter of “Democrats good, Republicans bad”, felt compelled to twist this into “Santorum doesn’t think you should go to college”.
This type of distortion and wild extrapolation is where I object, and suggests that certain people, who view everything in life through their little race/class/gender polarizers, are either intellectually dishonest, or have serious reading comprehension deficiencies. Now let’s see if you can actually deal with facts instead of getting hysterical over incomplete or inaccurate information…
I have a friend who got her master’s degree in history at the University of California at Irvine. I’m sure she and all the professors who taught her there would be very interested to know that the program from which she got her degree does not exist.
See:
How California’s Colleges Indoctrinate Students
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303816504577312361540817878.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
“A Crisis of Competence” is posted at http://www.nas.org/images/documents/A_Crisis_of_Competence.pdf
March 30, 2012, 7:21 p.m. ET
How California’s Colleges Indoctrinate Students
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303816504577312361540817878.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
None of the nine general
campuses in the UC system requires students to study the history and
institutions of the United
States. None requires students to study
Western civilization, and on seven of the nine UC campuses, including Berkeley, a survey course
in Western civilization is not even offered. In several English departments one
can graduate without taking a course in Shakespeare. In many political science
departments majors need not take a course in American politics. . . .
and the [UC Berkeley] history department
had 31 Democrats and one Republican.
See also . “A Crisis of Competence” http://www.nas.org/images/documents/A_Crisis_of_Competence.pdf
I’m no Santorum fan whatsoever, but this is out of line. Curan and the rest of the little kiddies writing for the Daily Cal need to learn the difference between NEWS and OPINION. This is definitely an editorial article, and belongs in that section, NOT labeled as a “news” piece.
Yeah, because presenting FACTS clarifying Santorum’s “facts” are actually “opinions”???? LOL. You can’t just let people spout completely false information in promotion of their own cause and not let everyone know about it buddy.
If they would have done a little research, they could have found the report (which they wrote about on the front page of the Daily Cal) that gave the information that Santorum probably had heard about, although he misquoted it. The thing he was reading was that report, and the report states that some UCs don’t require a basic American history class. And the report does, in fact, contradict some of the stuff that university officials are described here as saying.
OK, so he read a false report and then misquoted it? People don’t have to take an american history course IF THEY ALREADY TOOK A COLLEGE LEVEL EQUIVALENT IN HIGH SCHOOL. Are you even a student here? Shit, we at Berkeley as the most “liberal” UC have an American History, American Institutions, AND American Cultures requirement. That’s 3 whole classes about the country!!!
Funny, I graduated w/o taking any of those courses at Cal, and I know plenty of others who did not as well (although obviously we met the necessary requirements either in HS or at the JC level as transfer students). So what is the actual requirement again?
It doesn’t have to be college level (i.e. AP). Your run of the mill high school US history class meets the requirement.
You’re not required to take a “college level equivalent”. The only requirement is for passing grades in college prep “a” subject (history and social sciences) for one year of US history or a half year of US history and a half year of US government.
A one year high school US history class meets the requirement.
”Misquoted?” No. He got it completely wrong — because it fit in so well with the point he wanted to make about college education being bad for people. If it wasn’t an intentional lie, then it shows a lack of basic reading comprehension skills. Let’s see him admit he was wrong and apologize. Then he might be deserving of your defense of him.
["Misquoted?" No. He got it completely wrong -- because it fit in so
well with the point he wanted to make about college education being bad
for people. ]
He never said such a thing, you silly little twit. Once again, people who can’t deal with the facts lie and distort the statements of others because they can’t win an argument on their own merits.
For the thinking impaired, I don’t agree with all of Santorum’s views and opinions, but at the same time a “news” article should be written as a news article, NOT as an op-ed piece. Sorry you can’t differentiate between the two.
The only thing the report said is that if you took a college equivalent course in high school you don’t need to take another survey course, but can take a more specialized option. In other words, you already know that Abraham Lincoln gave the Gettysburg address and the Declaration of Independence came before the Constitution, etc. lol, of course, your ilk probably still need that edumucating, so it’s all good…complain that dumbo history isn’t required at a university. It’s because we were busy taking that a long time ago and aren’t stupid and don’t need it again.
I still think it’s hilarious how you think that calling people names achieves anything.
Anyway, remember Santorum’s comment about how Obama is a Snob for suggesting that people go to college? Or did you conveniently forget that to present your twisted message?
It’s like a comment based version of fox news…
[If they would have done a little research]
You mean actually try to find out the facts? Too much work for your typical left-wing idiot – the same reason these types of people major in various racial/ethnic/gender grievance studies instead of learning math or the sciences.
Oh yes, like my family of left-wing idiots, featuring three PhD scientists who regularly publish in top journals, and a younger idiot with a full academic scholarship to a top-tier engineering program. Looking at self-reported political ideologies amongst university professors, left-wing idiots outnumber right-wing nincompoops 4 to 1 in the biological sciences and 10 to 1 in physics (Rothman et al., 2005 — probably one of the papers Santorum’s handlers train him to repeat when he calls our campuses ‘indoctrination mills’ due to us instructing our students in factual concepts, such as evolution, which religious fanatics find inconvenient). In short, had you bothered to do your research, you would have found that left-wing idiots do quite well in math and science, possibly due to our left-wing hippie parents teaching us to think for ourselves rather than rattle off some self-contradictory blather heard on morning radio.
Spend some time in the business world and industry, and you will find that conservatives outnumber liberals when it comes to engineering professionals. Maybe that’s the difference between living in the land of theory vs. that of actual practice?
You begin by mentioning the business world and industry only to focus on “engineering professionals”, as if that group of professionals consisted of the majority in either the business world and/or industry. I find it just as humorous that your claim about the political leanings of that specific group of professionals is not supported by a link to relevant data. And practical experience is insufficient grounds to stake a general claim, as it is doubtful you have met and questioned every engineering professional. Also, someone else could easily counter that they too know many engineers, most of which fall to the left of center.
Yeah, right, whatever. Only lefties go to college, sure. Sorry, I know plenty of people on the conservative end of the spectrum with advanced degrees. Once again, you confuse the political leanings of those in academia with the country at large. Maybe you should get out in the real world and get a real job – you might actually learn something for a change.
Re: “If they would have done a little research, they could have found the
report (which they wrote about on the front page of the Daily Cal) that
gave the information that Santorum probably had heard about”
The article SHOWS the exact paragraph of that report that Santorum probably read, and you say “if they would have done a little research they could have found it”???
How about if you had read the article you’re criticizing, you would have seen that they DID find it? And then they described how it is wrong.
What Santorum said was either and out-and-out lie, or was a result of willful ignorance. Either way, it was Santorum who was out of line. You know that as well as I do, Stan.
Read my post above. Santorum never said such a thing. You’re willing to take the bait because in your small mind, having a reason to hate Republicans is more important than dealing with the truth.
So what did he specifically say, and do you have a credible source to back it up? I ask that question because there are quite a few people moaning and whining about what Santorum allegedly said, but when I see sources that quote him directly, he is basically saying that not everyone can or should go to college – a point that I happen to agree with. That’s far different from the silly generalization (and inaccuracy) being peddled by the usual suspects, which is claiming that people don’t need to go to college. Try to grow up and deal with facts and specifics, instead of uncritically repeating and amplifying every silly claim peddled by people whose personal agendas keep them from dealing with the truth.
I’M A POOPY FACE!!!!!!!
Yah, cause a president who gets basic facts wrong is exactly what we need these days.
You mean like “campaigning in all 57 states”, right?
The difference is that Obama doesn’t really think there are 57 states. Santorum, on the other hand, really seems to believe that the University of California doesn’t teach American history.
“The difference is that Obama doesn’t really think there are 57 states.”
So he misspoke, as did Santorum. Your point?
As I said in the original post, the difference is that for Santorum it wasn’t a brain fart or a verbal misstep. He really thought it was true that the UC and CSU systems don’t teach any courses in American history.
If you can somehow show that Obama is under the impression that there are 57 states in the Union, I’ll concede the point. But to me it’s clear that we are talking about two different things.
Just you wait Nunya Beeswax, now that Stan can’t come up with a reasonable response to your reasonable response, he will either:
a) call you a childish name (see ‘twit’ above)
b) ignore your point and call me out on calling him out
c) not respond
So predictable…
The other story on the Daily Cal’s front page is about about bias in the UCs (http://www.dailycal.org/2012/04/02/leftism-at-the-uc-leads-to-skewed-education-report-claims/). The report referenced in the story (http://www.nas.org/images/documents/A_Crisis_of_Competence.pdf) says:
“The California State University system (CSU) is a laudable exception to this generalization. All but three of the more than twenty campuses of the CSU system require American History and Institutions as an essential part of their curricula. But the situation in UC is very different: not a single UC campus has such a requirement. In fact, on four of the nine general campuses, a student can achieve a bachelor’s degree without doing any coursework in science, mathematics, a foreign language, economics, literature, or the history and institutions of their country. Those four include the Berkeley campus.”
Obviously Santorum misspoke, but maybe he wasn’t that far off. It is likely that this report is what he was referring to, since he mentioned “seven or eight” schools.
Santorum 2012! ‘MMERRICAAA!