Ignorance costs more than education. This point has been made over and over, yet we treat education as though it was just another governmental function. It isn’t. It’s the only opportunity that can provide a stepping stone for all of the dreams of North Dakota children.

The media are carrying all kinds of concerns about the impact of ignorance on a democracy. We seem to have gotten along with a mediocre system in spite of the warnings from civil leaders and educators.

While many school districts may be content with “average,” average won’t be enough in a crisis arising out of ignorance. Because we live in America, we think we are superior to all other nations because, in many ways, America is superior.

U.S. 2nd Most Ignorant

But this doesn’t translate into an intelligent society. Measured by the performances in 14 other industrialized countries, the United States is the second most ignorant nation, with Italy running the highest.

The latest civics survey conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center found that only 26% of Americans could name the three branches of government and 37% couldn’t name any of the rights in the First Amendment.

In a 2010 survey, one-third couldn’t name the century of the Revolutionary War. In a 2015 survey, half of the students in 55 to-ranked institutions didn’t know the term of office for a U.S. Senator.

Overestimating Unemployment

In a recent Ipsos-MORI survey, people were asked about the unemployment rate. They thought it was 32% while in reality it is only 6%. A 2010 World Public Opinion survey found that people wanted to balance the federal deficit by cutting foreign aid, which is not 27% but a piddling 1%.

When I was on the UND faculty, we were asked to teach students to write across the curriculum, meaning that students would be required to write in every class.

Doing my academic duty, I had students write short essays in class. (We knew that take-home assignments were often written by someone other than the student.)

I was shocked. Half of 100 students couldn’t write a complete sentence. At first, I thought size of school made a difference but the failures appeared in both large and small schools. Ignorance is rampant in North Dakota.

No Room for Ignorance

Writing for Newsweek, Phil Toledano pointed out that Americans have gotten away with being ignorant about the world around them but things have changed in ways that make civic ignorance a problem going forward. “We can no longer afford to mind our own business…what happens in China and India affects workers in the United States.”

In a uniform national education system, raising the level of intelligence by one grade would yield billions of new dollars in salaries, profits, job satisfaction and personal contentment.

Some observers blame schools for dropping “social studies” out of their curricula, leaving only crumbs for personal and civic education. Others blame privatization of education for those who can afford it.

Ignorance and disengagement will not be sufficient in the future. Raising the intelligence level will not be cheap or easy but future generations will have to pay in spades if we don’t.

Lloyd Omdahl is a former lieutenant governor of North Dakota and former political science professor at the University of North Dakota, Grand Forks.