The exam will look for a breadth and balance of learning rather than for expertise in any of these areas.
Professionally operated testing services have considerable experience in administering the type of exam that would be used. For example, the Graduate Record Exam has subject area tests that it gives to college students who want to apply for graduate schools. The questions that are used for history, economics and political science can be also used for the presidential literacy test.
This test can easily be administered to any number of people on one Saturday session in locations across the nation. Federal Election Commission computers will grade the tests and rank the scores. Only those who score in the 80th percentile or above will qualify for the next step. A score in the top twenty percent would mean that the testee probably knows as much or more than a better than average upper division college student knows about these several subject areas. This is likely more than many presidents in the past have known upon taking office. Thus the knowledge level of college students who are interested in graduate or professional school would set the standard for what a presidential candidate should know. The standard would be high enough to eliminate those whose ignorance makes them unworthy of consideration by the electorate, yet low enough to pass well-informed people who may not be super-intellectuals. The 80th percentile should be a realistic reflection of a better than average score for the educated segment of the whole American population. While a score in the top twenty percent will not be a guarantee of competence in office, at least if there is incompetence it will not be due to ignorance. However, the minimum score should not be any higher than eighty percent. Good scholars often make poor executives, while middling scholars can be quite adept in practical affairs. Those who follow the careers of professional school graduates know that the students who score little better then a "gentlemen's C" in school often become the high achievers in the practical world. The purpose of the presidential literacy test is to weed-out the ignorant, not to enthrone the intellectual.
The F.E.C. computers will be programmed to stop scoring a test after it is clear that the test ranks in the 80th percentile. That will be the "pass / not pass" line for this test. The public record would not show any more than "P" or "NP." If numerical scores were computed and recorded, they would become debating points in the later stages of the selection process. But it is trivial and irrelevant to measure a presidential candidate's potential for leadership by whether or not he or she scored an 85 or a 95 on the test. Therefore, scores above eighty percent should not even be computed.
Only those who will be 35 years old or older on Inauguration Day, and otherwise eligible, can take the test. At 35, most people will have been away from school for more than a decade. Thus to pass the PLT will require that the test takers have been active readers of history, current affairs and other social science writings.
A military person who is well versed in his field but has neglected the study of economic and social problems and the Bill of Rights, will probably not achieve a score in the top twentieth percentile. A lawyer who knows constitutional law and economics but who lacks a basic familiarity with international relations, current social problems, and the principles of public administration will also probably not pass.
To repeat, a person need not be a super knowledgeable expert in each tested field to pass. One need only know roughly the equivalent of two or three college courses for each field to score well enough on the test. That's not much. The typical student takes over thirty courses in his four years of college. Adequate preparation for the PLT would require less study than an upper division college student does in his last two years of college. Anyone who has gone to graduate or professional school can look back upon their last two years of college and see that the amount of study they did in those two years was not much compared to their later training. Thus, the demands of the PLT, while challenging, are not too difficult for any intelligent, self-disciplined person to meet.
Still, people who have kept themselves well educated are rare. This rarity adds to their worth as presidential candidates. Imagine a business person, teacher, professional, or military careerist who kept himself or herself so well read. This in itself would make him or her a fine example of a person who lives by the values of self-discipline, hard work, concern for the country and self-improvement. Aren't these qualities that every president should have?
Also, the PLT allows the people to watch the candidates debate without having to worry about the intellectual credentials of the debaters. If someone gaffs, slips, or otherwise errs, the mistake will be kept in its proper context as just a mistake. No one will have to wonder if the debater is intellectually incompetent as they did when Gerry Ford said that Eastern Europe was free from Soviet domination, or when Ronald Reagan said that trees cause pollution. Sometimes people under pressure say the wrong thing. If their intellectual qualifications have already been certified, then candidate, public and press can let little errors pass.
The test will make it unnecessary for the candidates to feel that they must prove their intellectual competence. In one of the Nixon vs. Kennedy debates time was lost (as well as the attention of the audience!) when the debates got mired in a trivia contest about two tiny islands in the South Pacific -- Quoy and Matsu. Such irrelevant displays of detailed knowledge may be amusing as a parlor game, but they are a waste of time in presidential debates.
The PLT will put the debaters at ease because they will feel confident that the public accepts their intellectual qualifications. Under pressure the president does not compete in the recall of trivia, he or she engages in decision making. There are teams of experts on every subject which the president can use to recall details.
Another basic function of the PLT is to show that the candidate is as "job ready" as any candidate can be for the presidency. That is, he or she is already in possession of the elementary knowledge needed by the president. Once in office, there is no grace period for on-the-job training. Events happen fast. The new president must be ready to act on the day of his or her inauguration. Every new president must be prepared to converse fluently with highly specialized technical advisors. A president who cannot communicate with the experts in their language risks becoming dependent on their judgment.
Benjamin Barber notes that during the Golden Age of Greece, when Athens was the shining star of democracy, written tests were a common practice in the selection process of the great city-state's highest magistrates. (See, Strong Democracy.) This practice was also common for centuries in Confucian China. Thus the practice of testing magistrates is almost as old as government itself, and basic in the world's first democracy. In the U.S., we have hundreds of exams for lower level officials. Why should we not do the same for the chief magistrate?
Out of the two hundred fifty million people in the United States there are probably several hundred people who both meet the constitutional requirements for eligibility and who have the knowledge to pass the PLT. Not all of these people will want to be president or to take the test. Many will be quite satisfied with their current positions. Taking the test would be no inconvenience, but becoming the president would mean a complete break in one's lifestyle and the carrying of the world's heaviest responsibility. Few people would want to give up a life that they are satisfied with for history's toughest job.
However, all sorts of people will hear the call to glory and accept the challenge to take the test. If one thousand people took the test, perhaps two hundred, or twenty percent, would qualify. These people would be some of the finest examples of humanity our nation has to offer. Any one of them would be an excellent model for parents around the world to point to and say to their children "I want you to grow-up and be like the American president."
Surely this nation has 200 great people who are ready, willing, and able to take on the job and to do their best at it. The next problem is, how do we choose just one of these great people to be our president? But what a blessing this burden is! No longer are we choosing between two mediocre men that a band of the super-rich has presented to us. The American electorate will have some of the most superior self-educated, self-made, socially conscious, concerned citizens of the nation to choose from -- truly the right stuff! If more than 200 people pass the test, the next step will take relatively longer. But the people should not be deprived of quality presidential candidates by setting some arbitrary limit on how many can qualify. Whoever passes the test deserves consideration from the electorate.
THE PRESIDENTIAL LITERACY TEST THE STATE ELECTION DEBATES THE REGIONAL RUNOFFS
THE NATIONAL NOMINATING DEBATES THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION DEBATES