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Santorum: Students are indoctrinated, aren’t taught history

– By ALYSSA HOOGENDOORN, Special to the Register

Orange City, Ia. — Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum continued his recent campaign-trail criticisms of American schools Thursday, saying they’re indoctrinating the nation’s youth, failing to teach its history and perhaps even causing students to lose their faith.

Rick Santorum speaks Thursday at the Orange City Public Library./Alyssa Hoogendoorn

During a town hall meeting at the Orange City Public Library, the former Pennsylvania senator referred to an article published by National Review Online that showed American students to be “less proficient in their nation’s history than any other subject.”

He mentioned the article’s findings a few weeks ago during a speech in Council Bluffs. Santorum said a man who teaches at Washburn University in Topeka, Kan., came up to him and said he requires his students to take the U.S. citizenship test, to see how much freshmen know “about what it is to be an American.” The professor’s results: a pass rate of 10 percent and average score of 40 points out of 100.

“You wonder why young people can vote and flock for a guy like Barack Obama and say, if you look at the surveys, that socialism is better than capitalism — well, that’s because they don’t understand America,” Santorum said. “They haven’t been taught.”

Santorum said he’s been criticized for saying earlier this week, “Schools indoctrinate our children.” He added, “I said ‘indoctrination’ and I meant it.”

Rick Santorum speaks earlier Thursday at a restaurant in Rock Rapids./Alyssa Hoogendoorn

As an example, he said: “Sixty-two percent of incoming freshmen come into college with a faith conviction and leave without it. … I suspect if you took a control group of kids who don’t go to college, that doesn’t happen.”