From the NYTIMES, "The nation’s high school seniors performed significantly better on the
first nationwide economics test than they did on other recent national
exams in history and science, and demonstrated higher than expected
understanding of basic market forces like supply and demand than
officials expected."
The article points out that students did better with economical logic then the terminology of economics and the actual way that financial systems work... I almost don't know how to respond to this, of course people are going to have a better grasp of things that they deal with on a daily basis. I didn't take the quiz but from the two example questions the article uses to make this point, I'm surprised the difference isn't more varied then 80%/21%
The article highlights, "a question that
asked students to identify the most likely effect of an increase in the
hourly wage of baby sitters. Eighty percent of students answered
correctly that the time spent by teenagers on baby sitting would likely
go up, whereas time they spent on other activities would decrease, he
said.
But on a multiple-choice question that asked students to
identify one of the policy tools of the Federal Reserve, only 21
percent chose the correct answer, “buying and selling government
securities.” Thirty-seven percent incorrectly chose “increasing or
decreasing government spending,” and 31 percent chose “raising or
lowering income taxes,” he said.
“This means that students haven’t learned that Congress and the president determine federal spending,” Mr. Damasio said."
