Education

North Dakota Proposes Mandatory US Citizenship Test For All High School Graduates

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Who wrote the Declaration of Independence? Who is one of your state’s U.S. senators right now? How did Wickard v. Filburn affect the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Commerce Clause in the short and long terms?

OK, maybe not that last one, but high school students across North Dakota who seek diplomas could soon be required to answer the first two questions or others like them, Fox News Latino reports.

Bipartisan legislation proposed on Monday by Betsy Dalrymple, the first lady of North Dakota, and Kirsten Baesler, the state’s superintendent of schools, would require every student to pass a civics exam to graduate high school.

The civics test would be similar to the one immigrants must pass before they can become U.S. citizens.

The idea for such a test has generated interest in a handful of states (including North Dakota) thus far. Other states mulling a mandatory civics test for would-be high school graduates are Arizona, Utah, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Missouri and South Carolina.

“Every single student in Arizona and across the United States of America should have basic knowledge and understanding of American government,” Arizona state representative Steve Montenegro said back in September, according to The Arizona Republic. “Civics is just common sense.”

The civics portion of America’s official naturalization test is not particularly hard. There is a set of 100 possible questions relating to civics as well as government and basic American history.

You can see all 100 possible questions here.

The actual test doesn’t consist of 100 questions, though. Far, far from it. The civics test for immigrants is just 10 questions. The test is given orally to groups of nearly-naturalized citizens. Each applicant must get just six of those 10 questions right to pass.

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