Should States require a U.S. Citizenship Test for Graduation?

Arizona's new law requiring high school students to pass the U.S. citizenship test in order to graduate appears likely to be adopted in a handful of other states this year, though educators warn it's not a fix-all solution to the nation's dire knowledge of civics.

Fewer than a dozen states currently require students to take a civics exam, and passing it isn't necessary to graduate in all of them. In most states, civic education instead revolves around a one-semester U.S. history course.

Arizona on Thursday became the first to specifically require the U.S. citizenship test, a 100-question exam that tests knowledge of facts on subjects like the Founding Fathers, the Bill of Rights and U.S. presidents.

"This has been building for a long time," said Ted McConnell, executive director of the Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools, a civic learning coalition co-chaired by former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. McConnell said he and others are wary that legislators are only skimming the surface of what students need to know.

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