High schoolers enjoy the challenges of academic competition on a 50 year old television quiz show.

While Americans bemoan the failures of their education system - while politicians and teachers argue over the best way to fix things - while some politicians even want to abolish free public education - a fifty-year-old television quiz show featuring high schoolers is still going strong. "It's Academic" has changed little since it first took to the airwaves in 1961. Even the host of the first broadcast is still hosting the show. High schools still feature their brightests students as teams of contestants. And the contestants still must use their brains to answer school exam-like questions.

The following excerpt from VOA News shows that the youth of today have much more in common with the youth of 50 years ago than we often think. They like mental challenges just as much. They study to improve their memories just as hard. And they enjoy displaying their mental skills every bit as much as athletes enjoy playing before crowds. If students are showing weaker performances in academics today, it is not necessarily due to a decline in native ability or motivation. It is more likely due to failures in the system we subject our youth to. Also, although television can be blamed for the numbing of otherwise fertile minds, at least in this case television can be credited for keeping minds active.

"It's Academic" TV Show Is 50 Years Old

(VOA News) The longest-running TV quiz show in the world is beginning its second half-century on the air. It's Academic is a Washington program that lets high school students showcase their brainpower.

It's a Saturday morning, and the high school TV quiz show It's Academic is on the air, as it has been for the past 50 years. Students from schools across the Washington D.C. area are answering questions on history, literature, math, science, religion, politics and sports.

Producer Susan Altman says the show is a lot of fun. "It's a great age group to work with," said Altman. "They're fun, they're enthusiastic, they say funny things without even meaning to half the time."

Altman's mother, Sophie, a TV producer in the 1950s, started It's Academic at the request of local school officials to showcase outstanding students.

"At that time, 1961, the United States was going through a lot of upheaval with school integration, and they wanted things to help out to make the schools look good and to show that integration could work and work well. So this is what she came up with," recalled Sophie Altman.

Mac McGarry has hosted It's Academic since it debuted. He's now 84.

"Every time I look up, I see people who are just 17 years old, and somehow I think, 'Well I must not be getting older at all.' Their enthusiasm is contagious, no question about it. You really have to rev yourself up to keep up with them," he said.

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