I love Thomas Sowell. He's always got funny and interesting observations in his columns, and today's was no different. He pointed out an inconsistency that I never would have thought of. Of course I have no concrete examples of people that fit these characteristics, but I have no doubt they are out there. Basically he said that the same kind of people that deride standardized testing as a valid measure for children fully support not executing someone on death row because they scored low on an intelligence test (ignoring the fact that someone on death row has no incentive to score well, knowing that being really dumb could keep them alive). But I don't actually know anyone offhand that matches that. Of course those aren't topics I spend a loat of time talking to people about. Personally I love standardized tests because I'm REALLY good at them. More than anyone I know, I'm able to figure out the nuts and bolts behind a test, and score higher by knowing what the test's tendencies are. Many times I can answer a question without actually reading the question, just looking at the choices. Of course that's also a backhanded slap at the tests, because a well-designed test shouldn't be as full of tricks as the SAT. When you take a Princeton Review course, they spend as much time teaching ou the tricks which I pick up instinctually, as they do teaching you how to actually solve math questions and resolve analogies.

I should also mention that none of the teachers I know like standardized testing and they all hate "No Child Left Behind." Then again our school systems are failing us, so maybe we shouldn't care what the teachers think. I don't know the solution, but sticking our heads in the sand and refusing to do anything but raise taxes and spend more money is obviosuly not helpng, so let's try something new. Vouchers perhaps? Honestly, most talk about improving education seems to be entirely negative with no good suggestions. Just that vouchers suck, but no positive ideas. Pay our teachers more, blah blah blah. The problem with that is that nit's nearly impossible to fire a teacher, and crappy teachers get paid the same as good ones. They have little incentive to be better, and the teacher's unions won't allow any change to the status quo. In fifty years (assuming no singularity), historians may look back on the teacher's unions as the single greatest factor in the fall of the United States. Our kids are falling further behind other industrialized countries every day, and the status quo is not going to fix things. Only change will, and groups that obstruct change are, in this case, EVIL. Unintentionally, perhaps, but evil nonetheless. They are destroying our country slowly but surely.

Do you realize that most high school kids can't find India on a map? And most also think the U.S.-Mexico border is the most fortified in the world (I bet most adults do, too). This sort of ignorance is scary!!!! FYI, the U.S.-Mexico border fortifications are practically non-existant. Most countries have FAR stricter border controls than we do, and they deport illegal aliens as a matter of course. Only in the U.S. do we embrace lawbreakers before we embrace our own citizens.