April 29, 2009, - 1:57 pm
America Gets Dumber: Dueling Headlines of the Day
By Debbie Schlussel
More proof that not only can’t you believe what you read in the mainstream media, but if you do, you’re not sure what to believe. Check out these dueling news blurbs.
From Today’s Wall Street Journal Front Page . . .
From Today’s Detroit Newsistan . . .
So, which one is right? Well, both, but the first one–from the Wall Street Journal–tells the real story. The second one is misleading and basically a typical white lie told in the Detroit News birdcage liner.
While kids a/k/a younger students made gains in math and reading, those gains wash out by the time they are in high school. As a result, we continue as a country to fall behind that of other Western industrialized nations. For the most part, their kids are improving constantly and even in high school, while our kids haven’t improved since 1971. Well, technically, we’re up a “whopping” ONE point in reading and only TWO points in math since 1971. Very sad. How much tax money have we thrown down a black hole to improve education in those 38 years? More than the gross national product of lots of third world countries combined, with nothing to show for it.
U.S. high-school students haven’t achieved any significant gains in reading or math for nearly four decades, according to a new federal report. . . .
The report from the National Assessment of Educational Progress — a highly respected federal test also known as the “Nation’s Report Card” — looked at NAEP results for 9-, 13- and 17-year-olds since the early 1970s, when the tests in math and reading were first given.
Although the two younger groups have made progress in those subjects over that period, scores for 17-year-olds were virtually unchanged.
On a zero-to-500-point scale, 17-year-olds scored an average of 286 points in reading in 2008, up one point from 1971. The NAEP report said students with such scores have “intermediate skills” and are able to make generalizations about what they read.
In math, the same group’s average scores rose two points to 306 since 1973. The report said students scoring in that range are able to perform moderately complex procedures such as computing with decimals and simple fractions.
The results suggest gains made by younger students are “washing out” as they get older, said Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education . . . .
President Barack Obama has said boosting high-school-graduation rates is a key element of his education agenda.
WHAT? Boosting graduation rates is why we have a problem in the first place. Schools graduate dummies who can’t read or write or add or subtract. Our publick skoolz are diploma mills. The piece of paper called a high school diploma is worth about as much as the piece of paper called a Middle East peace treaty.
This is what we mean by the “Dumbing Down of America.” Like I’ve said time and again, the movie “Idiocracy” ain’t much of a stretch for America’s future.
20 million illegal aliens, Islam growing by leaps and bounds, and America’s kids getting dumber by the minute and stuck at the intellect of 1971.
It’s the perfect storm for our enemies.
American kids are getting dumber. But, hey, they know what Heidi and Spencer from “The Hills” are getting for wedding gifts. And they know which designer clothes porn star Kim Kardashian is wearing.
Hi Debbie,
Did you know that in California we now have a high school exit exam that students are required to pass in order to get a diploma?
Perpetua on April 29, 2009 at 3:05 pm