I recently wrote about a study showing that 90 percent of college students could not differentiate between the U.S. Constitution and that of Russia.

These findings are disturbing on many levels.

Political science professor at Suffolk Community College and Campus Reform Higher Education Fellow Nick Giordano said that 90% of college students couldn't differentiate the U.S. constitution from the Russia constitution.

"So for the last decade, I assign my students a constitutional exercise," Giordano said on the "Just the News, No Noise" TV show. "It's to see if they could identify the Constitution, and 90% of my students can't differentiate between the American from the Russian constitution. It really is startling."

Literacy regarding the U.S. Constitution has been on the decline for a while, according to other studies.

According to a survey conducted by the University of Pennsylvania's Annenburg Public Policy Center, only one in six U.S. adults could name any of the branches of government.

It is clear that our schools are no longer teaching about the Constitution and the role it is supposed to play in protecting our natural rights from the government. Indeed, many students have never even read the document, and a disturbing percentage of adults can’t even name one branch of the federal government.

Pause for a moment and think about what this could mean for the future of the American experiment.

It means young adults do not know their rights, nor do they even seem interested in understanding how important it is to guard against government abuse. This isn’t just concerning; it's a full-on crisis.

The bottom line is that a population that does not know their rights or even understand why they are worth fighting for is a population that is easy to control and abuse. How can we the people push back against government overreach when we remain unaware of the legal framework that is supposed to limit the state?

But here’s a twist. One does not need a tinfoil hat to see that this is a deliberate effort to make people even more ignorant about the values upon which our nation was founded. As I’ve said before, this is not a failure—it is by design. Since the beginning of compulsory education, public schools have been indoctrination centers intended to churn out compliant and ambivalent workers who are loath to question authority. What we are seeing today is the progression of this insidious initiative.

If the elites want a population that is compliant and easily manipulated, they first have to ensure that the people are ignorant. It is why progressives are pushing to have schools teach the supposed virtues of progressive ideas instead of instructing them on reading, writing, math, and civics. The last subject, in particular, is essential to having a free society, which is why those running our local, state, and federal governments are not too keen on educating children in this area.

To some, this might seem to be an extreme accusation. But what else can you make from the reality that young Americans, who are on the cusp of voting and shaping policy, don’t even know the difference between our founding documents and those of a foreign country? The result will be entire generations of Americans growing up without knowing their rights, their powers, or the limitations on governmental authority. We can’t defend our rights when we don’t even know what they are or why they are important, can we?

This provides yet another reason for parents to get their kids out of government-run schools. The people need to advocate aggressively for school choice legislation that prevents the state from dictating where and how their children are educated. Education should be a process by which children are prepared to be free-thinking individuals who understand the idea of liberty. Unfortunately, our current learning institutions have different goals, which means Americans need to seek out alternatives. The very future of our society is hanging in the balance.