It’s easy to point fingers but I’m going to reframe the question in an attempt to provide a valid target. I can speak from firsthand experience (having taught high school before going “up”) that it’s not that students aren’t exposed to the basic facts (slanted and distorted as they sometimes get by public education. It’s that students aren’t really held accountable. Everyone gets to pass history because it’s so much work to actually record a failing grade –that’s why I got out. If there’s no consequence for not learning, then why learn (especially if you’re sixteen and it’s soooooo boring with dates and junk)?

That’s where we need to start asking the questions: why aren’t students held accountable for basic knowledge before they get to us?