I have taught junior high and senior high English and social studies for over thirty years, and let me tell you: There are people just that ignorant - many more than you want to know. And the problem is getting worse. I have had students tell me on tests that Anne Frank went into hiding during the U.S. Civil War, that Hitler was president of the United States during World War II, that July is the coldest month of the year in Minnesota, etc. I remember a general music student from years ago (when I was a student) who thought that a particular song was written in the key of H. The ignorance problem is not always the result of poor schools; a teacher can teach, prod, and cajole until he's blue in the face. The sad fact is that some students have NO intellectual life at home, read nothing, pay no attention to what goes in the classroom, and simply CANNOT THINK. The scariest part is that too many of these people vote and that politicians shape their views according to the "collective wisdom" - spoken in hushed tones,
of course - of the American people.