It is early in the morning. No one is around. I am going to confess...I am for national standardized testing of kids in basic math and reading skills. Maybe this puts me on the side of some aspects of No Child Left Behind, but I was for this before president dog brain came around with his plan with its bizarre accomodations of states rights. Such as the right to bring up dumb kids.
Therefore I find this piece from the Times quite funny. It seems Tennessee, Mississippi, etc. give their own tests to kids statewide and they come out as little Einsteins but when the national test is applied the kids come out alot further down the evolutionary tree. Could it be that in areas where creationism ( intelligent design) is stongly held the kids are reverse evolving; losing their math and reading skills but getting really good at swinging from vines?

from the NY Times:

Students Ace State Tests, but Earn D's From U.S.

By SAM DILLONPublished: November 26, 2005

After Tennessee tested its eighth-grade students in math this year, state officials at a jubilant news conference called the results a "cause for celebration." Eighty-seven percent of students performed at or above the proficiency level.
But when the federal government made public the findings of its own tests last month, the results were startlingly different: only 21 percent of Tennessee's eighth graders were considered proficient in math.
Such discrepancies have intensified the national debate over testing and accountability, with some educators saying that numerous states have created easy exams to avoid the sanctions that President Bush's centerpiece education law, No Child Left Behind, imposes on consistently low-scoring schools.
A comparison of state test results against the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress, a federal test mandated by the No Child Left Behind law, shows that wide discrepancies between the state and federal findings were commonplace.
In Mississippi, 89 percent of fourth graders performed at or above proficiency on state reading tests, while only 18 percent of fourth graders demonstrated proficiency on the federal test. Oklahoma, North Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, Alaska, Texas and more than a dozen other states all showed students doing far better on their own reading and math tests than on the federal one.

dumb and dumber