With the upcoming 2024 election combined with the majority of the senior class of Granite Bay High School on the verge of turning 18 – the eligible age to vote – it remains important to ask: How strong is our student body’s understanding of the United States Government? Well, in efforts to understand the student body’s grasp of how the US is managed, a comprehensive poll was recently conducted which highlights the awareness of our student population on our government.
The poll shows a mix of GBHS’s student body, most importantly in students who have or have not taken any government related courses provided by the school. Through data-driven observations, the student body was tested, providing a wide array of results. With a sample size of 147, Granite Bay Today’s survey consisted of 10 multiple choice-style questions, asking general questions about the US government, most of which are taught in GBHS’s government classes. Ranging from “What is federalism?” to “Who is the current chief justice of the Supreme Court?”, the questions were designed to challenge students, but still largely prove to be manageable if the respondent had some understanding of the current US system of government.
A statistical breakdown of the questions showed a total average score of 5.49 out of 10 points, with 41% of the respondents having taken some form of AP or CP government class However, of those who took the survey who were in or have taken an AP Government course at GBHS, the average increased to 7.6, while those who had not taken any form of government course at GBHS saw an average score of 4.4.
However, out of all of the people who took part in the survey, only one out of the 147 got a perfect 10/10, while 20 students got ones, twos, and threes.
Out of all of the questions on the form, the most missed question was “Who is responsible for presiding over the Senate in the absence of a Vice President?”, with only 13 getting the answer correct. Meanwhile, the question with the most correct responses was, “What are the three branches of the U.S. federal government?”, with 134 correct answers.
However, when divided into students who have taken or are taking a government course and those who are or have not taken one, the statistics saw a dramatic contrast. 15% of the students who have not taken a government course could not name the three branches of US government, as compared to 100% of AP Government students being able to list all of them: the judicial, legislative and executive branches. Additionally, in a surprising twist, roughly 11% of the non-government-taking students knew that the President Pro Tempore of the Senate is the person who presides over the Senate in the absence of a Vice President, while only 9% of the AP government-taking students answered this same question correctly.
