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The Decline of America: The "Education President": "United States of Sweden"


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Mean number of correct answers (out of sixteen) in a geography
             test given in nine countries, 1988:
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                CORRECT ANSWERS,  CORRECT ANSWERS,
COUNTRY           AGE 18 TO 24    AGE 55 AND OVER

Sweden               11.9              10.3
Germany              11.2              10.9
Japan                 9.5               7.9
Canada                9.3               8.7
Italy                 9.3               5.5
France                9.2               8.8
United Kingdom        9.0               7.8
Mexico                8.2               5.7
United States         6.9               8.4

Source: The Gallup Organization, "Geography: An International Gallup
Survey" (Princeton, NJ.: Gallup, 1988). p. 55.


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         The United States . . . of Sweden?

"Even if we don't know much about world geography, at least we know
about our own country. Right? Wrong. Less than half of those Amencans
surveyed know that our population is between 150 million and 300
million people. In five other nations, more respondents know the
population of the United States than we do. Only a third of young
Americans know the approximate population of the United States, less
than in all but one of the nations surveyed. At the top, young Swedes
are 44 percent more likely to know the number of inhabitants in the
United States than are the American inhabitants of the same age.

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  Percentage of population age 18 to 24 who know that the
 American population is between 150 million and 300 million
                        people, 1988:

                 KNOW U.S.                   KNOW U,S.
COUNTRY         POPULATION  COUNTRY         POPULATION

Sweden              46      France              35
Mexico              46      United States       32
Canada              42      United Kingdom      32
Germany             42      Italy               25
Japan               41

Source: The Gallup Organization, "Geography: An International Gallup
Survey" (Princeton, NJ.: Gallup, 1988), p. 59.

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From page 69 of:

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_We're Number One, Where America Stands -- and Falls -- in the New    
World Order_ by Andrew L Shapiro.   

New York, May 1992, Vintage Books, a division of Random House.   
$10 paperback. ISBN 0-679-73893-2  
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    "America is becoming a land of private greed and public squalor.   
    This book is an indispensable road map through the wreckage. The   
    facts it reveals will startle you. They may depress you. But   
    ideally they'll fire you up to help rebuild this nation."   

                        -Robert B. Reich, author of The Work of Nations