What Do Our 17-Year-Olds Know: A Report on the First National Assessment of History and Literature

by Diane Ravitch, Chester E. Finn Jr.

What Do Our 17-Year-Olds Know? Gives the results of the first nationwide test of American high school students' knowledge of history and literature, as well as fascinating insight into what teenagers are reading, how much television they watch, what influence their home environment has on their academic achievement, and what historical topics and literary works are included in (or have been dropped from) the school curriculum.

Genres: Education

293 pages, Hardcover

First published November 10, 1987

About the author

Diane Ravitch is a Research Professor of Education at New York University, a historian of education, and a research professor at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. She is the Founder and President of the Network for Public Education.
She was U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education from 1991-93.
She was married to Richard Ravitch from 1960 until they divorced in 1986.
She married Mary Butz in 2012.
Aside from her many books on education history and policy, Ravitch writes for The New York Review of Books and maintains an influential blog on education.