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Americans Have Never Been Dumber
Three years ago, we noted the dumbification of America was accelerating as SAT scores hit record lows. It appears the need for the Derek Zoolander Center For Kids Who Can't Read Good And Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too has never been greater as Bloomberg reports that students in the high school class of 2015 turned in the lowest critical reading score on the SAT college entrance exam in more than 40 years, with all three sections declining from the previous year.
The mean score on the math portion of the SAT, 511, is the lowest since 1999. The highest possible score on each section is 800.
The reading score of 495 is the worst since 1972, according to data provided by the College Board.
The test administrator reported the lowest score for the SAT's writing section since it began in 2005.
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But apart from that... "I am Cait" is on later...
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Whats everyone complaining about? Some GMO food, heavy metal nano-particles, petroluem chemicals, and ionizing radiation are good for you!
It's the drugs, man. Everyone's on a prescription these days.
Pharmacopia - the delusional belief that bodily illnesses can be healed by ingesting petroluem distillates
My neice is the Director of Admissions at one of our local colleges. We were chatting about this the other night around the supper table.
She stated 80 percent of the incoming applicants for this starting semester required remedial classes because they could not read or do math at the college level. She stated these kids did not need to go to college. But of course the college now enrolls them in these remedial classes. I was dumbfounded. Of course at college tuition rates. These kids will be so screwed when they see their lifetime of debt. But they will get Der college degree alrite! Lol
Fuck it. My new retirement strategy is to scam the fuck out of my nieces, nephews, friend's grandchildren, etc. Fuckers can't even read or add two numbers.
"Think of the dumbest person you know, and remember that most people are 50% dumber than that." -George Carlin
It's probably what, 75% dumber now?
It's called the Dunning–Kruger effect.
Atheism, turning away from GOD, makes you stupid. Seriously. It's in the Bible, Romans 1-20-22:
20
Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made. As a result, they have no excuse;
21
for although they knew God they did not accord him glory as God or give him thanks. Instead, they became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless minds were darkened.
22
While claiming to be wise, they became fools
Don't get stuck on stupid
Stuck? That makes it sound unintentional or like it's a problem of some sort. It's the freaking GOAL.
You might not be able to fix stupid, but you can sure as fuck enhance it.
Indoctrination versus education, this would be easy to understand if people were actually allowed to think......
+1000 This is why you should homeschool your kids. You can skip over the indoctrination, the "new math" bullshit, the propaganda, and just teach your kids what they really need. We spent the first year of homeschool merely deprogramming what the public schools had instilled. It's a rare pleasure to tell your child something and have them argue back with logic. That never happened when they were in publik skool. Of course, we probably painted a big ole target on their backs because they can think for themselves now, but what the hell, we were always targets anyway.
Sure, my homeschooled kids have a hard time forming a straight line with all the government schooled kids. And they don't even know about Bruce Jenner. However, we were just talking about Thales and Pythagoras, and even the seven year old got it. Seems to me that our Common Core is lagging way behind what kids are capable of. Or at least what some kids are capable of.
And....we can do in two hours what it takes most schools seven hours to accomplish, usually with much higher standards. Then the kids can try out other things they want to learn, read banned books, or just work with the animals at our house. We don't regret it at all. Sure, it's expensive. My wife could make a helluva lot of money instead of teaching. I'd love to go play some sport instead of making sure they understand math and the sciences. We just know and care too much.
Sum 12:55
Your kids will rebuild this country after 2034.
There was a dinky religious school that only had 12 year home schooled kids enrolled [or close to it]. The debating team went pretty far. They were in the world finals and won. They "schooled" Oxford! How could THAT be?
The zios brought over the educational system they created in their soviet union experiment and the results are obvious.
Satanists not "zios".
Is there a difference?
Yes. Satanists want to destroy Judaism. And Christianity, Islam, Buhddism and everything else for that matter. Note the little girl in the coffin in this Luciferian art holds a bible, and a star of David.
https://www.google.com/search?q=Denver+airport+murals&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0CB4QsARqFQoTCPaFl-mf28cCFY0XkgodswQAAg&biw=1707&bih=881#tbm=isch&q=Denver+airport+murals+coffin&imgrc=c7pqydiEildKoM%3A
That image is from the Luciferian Denver Airport Murals which you can google if you are interested in the topic.
They are all three:
1) Zionists
2) Satanists
3) Kabbalists
Arguing over the semantics is ridiculous. They pretend to be of the Jewish faith, when all we can say for sure is that many are of the Jewish ETHNICITY.
Wrong, the semantics are important, and each of those groups you mentioned are separate. Semantics matter, especially so the pitchforks get pointed in the right direction when the time comes.
Zionism is a nationalist and political movement of Jews and Jewish culture that supports the re-establishment of a Jewish homeland in the territory defined as the historic Land of Israel (per Google)
What's going on has nothing to do with a Jewish Homeland. In fact if the goal is to destroy Judiasm why would a Zionist support that?
Satanism/Luiciferian is the best term to use and precisley identifies the Globalist Cabal trying to totally rule the world. The others just cause confusion, which I suspect you are trying to do on purpose.
I guess you never heard of Eretz Israel... That is the concept Zionists support. And in their mind, its the whole goddamn world.
They hate non-Zionist Jews, that much is true. So you see how Judaism and Zionism are completely unrelated? Its because you are conflating Israel and Judaism, instead of Israel and Zionism.
These occult fucks actually believe Satan and Lucifer are different beings. And that Lucifer is a good guy, that wants to help us. Its part of their 'pincer strategy'. Divide and conquer. Give people two choices, but control both choices (Lucifer OR Satan).
PS. Hope the new avatar is working out well for you. The hood is a little spooky. Next time pick something a little more cheerful. Thanks.
Mission Accomplished.
-Uncle Sam
How does the Pentagon lose $1 trillion dollars?
How much does the IRS gross per year? Isn't $1 trillion like a full year of gross income for the IRS?
How come I CANNOT get a raise! My supervisor Ms. Latonya Redmond said that their budget cannot tolerate any raises this year but she's driving a new Mercedes!
WTF?
They won't give you shit till you are prepared to leave and submit your 2 weeks notice. So line something else up and be ready to follow through. If you are worth it, watch that wallet open up.
You need to go talk with the people that compute the CPI. They are the ones that can get you that raise. Then again, they get raises based on the same criteria. If they aren't smart enough to game it to their advantage, they probably don't want to help you either. Almost proves the basis behind this whole article.
Brought to you by government bureaucrats and union morons posing as teachers.
Shocking considering all those vaccines and the flouridated water most sheep are sucking down.
This meme is absolutely retarded and it is shocking you get so many up-votes. Oh, wait a minute! We have an education problem.... right!
We sure do, when people like you are willing to believe Big Tobacco type science, or that corporations haven't already achieved 100% regulatory capture.
If you're believing what you read about vaccines in Time magazine and Forbes, I don't know what to tell you. It's like Popular Science "debunking" 9/11 truthers.
smart phones dumb people
Weird...A government program that is making the problem worse? Must be an outlier.
12 captive years is clearly not enough - we need FREE college!
Fixed!
Food good.
Fire bad.
Obey.
Take pills as directed.
Don't try this yourself.
Call the authorities if you see something - even yourself...
Vote.
USA!!! USA!!! USA!!!
Lots of stupid people over the years (and even now) believe that the "dumbing-down" of America somehow beneifts liberals and progressives.
I'd like to go back in time and ask those Polish intellectuals killed during WWII (aka Intelligenzaktion) what they think of that belief.
I'm a progressive, and I can tell you, I don't see any benefit. Not in the least.
So you are a communist?
Would you like to see my papers?
As long as you admit to being a communist, why would we need to see papers? The problem is that almost all Americans are not aware of the fact that approximately 100 years ago the CPUSA, realizing the word "communist" is toxic, began calling themselves "progressives". Seek help son, you have a serious, debilitating brain disease.
Yes, yes. Believing that we're all created equal and share the same rights - that none of us should be above any law or steal from others and call it "being successful" - is a debilitating brain disease.
So you are the same as the crack addict who just bashed a little old lady in the head for her pension money?
Some animals are more equal than others, best get used to it. We might all get hatched the same way but shortly after that reality sets in and egalitarianism for all flies out the window like the pipe dream that it is.
Opportunity without ability is a sham. Lowering the bar makes a mockery of the original intent, and in some cases puts lives at risk.
We have people where I work who are in no way competent to do the job, and in an emergency would present a grave danger to those they're supposed to assist.
This is the result of policies that put "equality" ahead of ability. Fear of lawsuits is the prime motivation here, since it's now common to sue a company for discrimination on the basis of race, gender etc. when the real criteria was ability.
So you are a closet communist... I guess
So you are a closet fascist...I guess.
Nope
Better look at the policies your so called progressives are pushing, they are very facist in nature. Social security, allegedly voluntary but I have yet seen a way to get out of it. Mandated Health insurance from a private provider? Land of the free in deed. I need a permit just to cut down my own trees. Total BS.
I don't believe necessarily in Social Security. If people we're paid a decent wage and didn't have to go into debt to fund their lives, or accept future payment for work already performed, then Social Security would not be needed.
I don't believe in Obamacare, either. Single-payer is the only and best way to go.
So there.
Yes, the marxists ALWAYS attempt to associate fascism with "right wing", when they know damn well THEY are the fascists!!!! Don't think so? Who is trying to ban the words "boy", "girl", "husband", "wife"? The Tea Party?
polish intellectuals?
It does when you depend on having a voting block that will believe everything they are told. "Obama gonna make my car loan disappear" "Health care will be free".... So you promise the moon and people buy the BS without evening thinking "how the hell are they going to make that happen?". In my experience stupid people are easier to control and manipulate. It doesn't make it right but I strongly believe that is what the powers that be want. I mean really, the nazi's said that fluoride was put in the water to make people more manageable in the concentration camps. What happens post WW2? fluoride gets put into the water in the US (not everywhere). You can't make this shit up. On top of that people that raise concerns and speak out about it are attacked in mainstream TV shows via creating characters that are always nut jobs on the show that don't like fluoride in the water.
Kanye will win in 2020. And Yeezy's first "lady" will make the current one look like Lady Di.
Kanye Camacho in 2016. We are just a few years from full blown idiotcracy.
Start your bug out plans now
Latinos are a distint ethnic group with a different skillset, political attitudes and more than 200% higher diabetes rates, this is just the beginning.
"Im just a bad test taker"
... worse than all the other bad test takers before me
We educate for tolerance --- not knowledge.
cater to the lowest common denominator and everyone wins a prize,best friend is ex-pat in Asia raising his kids there cant keep up -get a tutor or tough luck-at 10 his twins are years ahead of students that age in this country
Last week, as the bartender was pouring a couple of Guiness drafts, I mentioned that they taste great but have a lower alcohol content.
The waitress, nearby, overhearing my comment, jumped in, "No, dark beers have higher alcohol content. I've been going to (toxicology? some kind of bar school) for (a long time) and blah blah blah. "
I just looked at her incredulously, mentioning we could 'google' it, and that was that.
I googled it once I got home and lo, and behold, Guiness has LOWER alcohol content by volume than the average beer. (I knew this already just from looking at the alcohol content on a can once).
People today think they know everything, yet, they just don't know what they don't know.
(You could say she flunked her 'bar' exam)
the color of beer has absolutely nothing to do with alcohol content
Yes that is true and anyone that has brewed their own beer would know this. BTW, I highly recommend brewing beer its easy,fun and something to do with the wife.
I think draught and bottle are wildly different, too - the bottle is more like 7, the draught more like 5. I wish her luck in toxicology, tho - I think there's a big market for it.
Makes me want to make a good stout for the Fall, thanks for that thought.
Maybe she was just trying to hit on you.
You heard, "blah blah blah", but maybe she was really saying, "Yes, yes, yes!" Sometimes you gotta take one for the team. She obviously felt her schooling was a major accomplishment and was trying to impress. Was she hot any? Coz if you say she looked like the St Pauli girl Ima downvote you for the next week! : ))
Yes and my neighbors are concerned about the school dress code. They think that not allowing young girls to wear tank tops and booty shorts is ridiculous and is part of an obvious war on women. They actually started a petition drive to get rid of the dress code.
What the kids are actually learning in school? They couldn't tell you. But they sure are concerned about that dress code.
If you are serious, get your kid out of that school.
Adam Smith’s “Invisible Hand” is real.
My kid is out of that school & has been in private school for the last few years. We had our fill of public school when she was bullied by her teacher for being intelligent. The teacher had the nerve to tell me that she didn't think my child did well on the standardized tests because she was done too quickly. Her scores were off the top of the chart. Never looked back at public school again. It took me 6 months to get my child excited about reading again. She, in 5th grade, read on an 11th grade level. The teacher tried to force her to read books on a 5th grade level. Can you say BORED?
Must stop talking about this. I feel my blood pressure going up again. LOL
Try being an intelligent individual in today's America.
You will see my face locked in a perpetual scream.
I've seen you, Cheech! And, maybe you should stay out of the mall for a while. It obviously isn't good for you. :-)
Its why I drink. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/201010/why-intelligent-people-drink-more-alcohol
Kids should wear uniforms to school. Solves a whole lot of problems.
Fuck uniforms. My kids often go to school in pajamas. Ah, the benefits of homeschool. No peer pressure to dress in the peer-mandated labels, no hyperliberal educator screaming about a t-shirt with a gun on it, no wasted fiat on "official" school uniforms, no worries about the girls changing for gym in the presence of a he/she.
Heck, many of the mothers I've seen wear tank tops and booty shorts too. And they walk fast...trying to get their bodies looking like the models on TEEVEE who are shaped like prepubescent little boys.
well how else are their overweight PWT daughters gonna land a baby daddy, except to troll with her "easy honey wear"? trailer trash mama needs her government checks to roll in each month.
You know how many kids are on ADHD drugs now? On my younger boy's hockey team 6 out of the 15 are on drugs. You can tell when the parents are "struggling with their dosage" by the way kid practices and plays. Hell, you can tell by the vacant stare in the locker room what player you'll get that day.
How many of the mass murderers we're seeing in movie theaters and schools have taken these drugs? Will anyone ever tie the connection or even ask the question?
not while democrats are in control
Mainstream news will not touch it. Big pharma buys most of the advertising airtime on the networks. Most Republicans won't touch it either. Leadership has been co-opted.
My next-door neighbor's kid and across the street all of the kids and their friends are on ADHD medication.
If they can't dumb you down to the school, then they're going to use medication.
I have a friend who has a nonverbal autistic boy who is on numerous medications as is the daughter. The mom and dad are both on several medications.
In our society it's getting to be that one is an outlier if one is not on any medication.
"You know how many kids are on ADHD drugs now? "
I've some news for you.
They don't come off the drugs when they turn 18.
The dosages in fact are often amped up.
I work with one fellow that is either super high strung and/or argumentative and/or unnecessarily meticulous OR completely ambivalent and/or easily distracted and/or bored depending on whether or not he has had his meds or not, whther he is on something new or a different/generic, etc...
He has very low esteem, insecurities, is a staunch unionist and Democrat, an advocate of gun control, rent control, 'free' public education, 'free' public health care, and the whole rest of the neo-socialist sheeple agenda...
Soma. TV and video games and iPods. Subsidized this and that. Fairness.
IF generating a populace exemplified by this vacant envious self absorbed ideological idiocy was the plan TPTB have done an absolutely amazing job...
Big Pharma hates you now for bringing this up.
Boys will be boys...that's a security threat to the overall feminization of the US. Best to dope them up.
For safety.
The war on all forms of masculinity is in full swing. Unless of course you are a butch lesbian. Then its a life style choice and must be applauded.
When can we start talking about why so many kids are "developmentally delayed"?
It's not a matter of taste, and these crazy drugs only follow another kind of crazy.
But why is it just Western children, with this decades-long history of disabling mental decline. Hmmm whatever could be the common denominator?
When can we start talking about why so many kids are "developmentally delayed"?
It's not a matter of taste, and these crazy drugs only follow another kind of crazy.
But why is it just Western children, with this decades-long history of disabling mental decline. Hmmm whatever could be the common denominator?
#Winning the race to the boughtem. So, playing angry birds all day on a smart phone has made our children stupid? That's ironic.
Do all these new-Americans from all over the non-english speaking world take the tests, too?
Can we get a comparison of our city dwellers vs. our country folks? I'm betting whitey is beating the innercity ghetto thug population. Albeit, the dumb white population is blooming, too.
Yes, plenty of dumb as shit whites...run into them everyday.
It kills me when I see parents ignoring their kids and playing on their smart phones.
But don't they grade the SAT on a curve? all those special snowflakes can't be anything but smarter than those that came before them, I've seen them play Bejeweled Blitz on their phones. Super smart.
Common Core
all while the democrats make sure people get more drugs...coincidence?
Democrats this, Democrats this.
You poor little victim. Woe is you.
If a kid gets worse and worse then it is an individual problem. When you have a national department ruling over the education system of the entire country and the result is a long and steady decline in academic performance during the entire tenure then yeah, it is a government problem. Democrats love government so much they keep forcing more of it on us.
So yes, people like you are to blame. You and your ilk have destroyed this country. Thanks in advance for the coming civil war that is going to kill millions. I hope you are happy with yourself.
PS - When I say Democrats I base that judgement by their actions, not the letter after their name. Boehner is a Democrat despite the (R), for example.
A great man once asked, “Is your children learning?” Now we know.
"Is your children taking enough drugs?" His backers at Pfizer, Bayer and Abbott Laboratories need more customers and more favorable legislation to increase profit.
A Small Victory: VMA Viewership Slips Again for Degenerate MTV:
http://winteractionables.com/?p=24690
They make me look smart.
Needz moar Gatorade
It's critical thinking that has been declining. My entire school experience was memorize this material to pass the test. Every subject formatted the same way, part of a system.
That's becasue school is based on Frederick's Schule system - designed by the Prussians to churn out bureaucrats and soldiers. Crititcal thinking comes from Plato's Academy. Beware where you study.
"My greatest flaw. I surround myself with idiots."
- Victor von Doom
Yep, America's single schoolhouse model was better!
It had kids of different ages in the same class, working on different material. And the older kids had to help teach the younger kids, which reinforced their learning!
The Prussian system was to divide everyone by age. It actually slows down maturation!
End co-ed dorm rooms.
dis i's sur's stoopid. I's no's dats i''smirts. i kin ties my shoos ands i's no's hows to brushes my teath.
anyone know how the test has changed (apples to oranges) over the years?
anyone know how renorming the test (think gerrymandering) has changed scores?
anyone know how the demographics of the testing population(apples to oranges) has changed over the years?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gerald-bracey/on-knowing-when-youre-bei_b_...
I wrote some software for the local university, tracking new student prospects, worked with them for about 2 years. My main contact made the point that by the early 90s the testing had beend dumbed down to make up for a drop in scores - a 600 in 1992 was like a 560 in 1986, can only imagine that has happened more than once since. So this lowest number would be, anyone before 1990 know the answer? Lower. It would be lower.
What are my chances of getting into Harvard?
Not Good.
You mean not good like one out of a hundred?
I'd say more like one out of a million.
So you're telling me there's a chance. Yeah!
Your chances of getting into Harvard... I'm gonna guess you are a white male, non-athlete, who has no alumni for kin and you don't have a billionaire for a parent so pretty much ZERO.
Full disclosure: I've been to Harvard a couple of times and seen the student body. The above is my personal observation.
Umm bro that was a scene out of Dumb and dumber, he just added the word Harvard...you dont get out much do you?
It's worse than you think:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRZZpk_9k8E
These are fucking college kids too! At a major university!
There has been a 10% score adjustment since 1992 due to this drop. I walked in and scored a 1410 as a HS dropout back in '92 when I decided to go to college to train for the Olympics. A few years back I decided to complete the final semester for my original degree and had to retake the SAT since mine was 2 versions old. I scored a 1590 on the original 2 sections.
A 180 point improvement in 20 years, both times with no study or thought as to what was on the test.
America needs to stop handing out awards for participating.
Just look at the retards that continue to use LOOSE for LOSE.
Even after calling them on it, they will get all huffy and say spelling isn't important in life.
Americans are fucking idiots 95 percent of them.
Getting tatooes in their neck and arms and forehead and getting piercings everywhere is what is important to these fucktards.
Then they wonder why they can't find a job.
They can find a job but it is at Walmart. Then they complain that they are not making $100K just for breathing. Must be all the racist haters holding them back.
+1000 THIS. If I have to read "loose" for "lose", "your" for "you're", or "to" for "too" one more time today, I will lose my shit. And don't even get me started on the fuckwits who use apostrophes where they are not appropriate, such as "I bought six kitten's today" or "I can't find my sneaker's, Mom".
For kids of the eighties who appreciate Weird Al:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gv0H-vPoDc
As far as tattoos and piercings go, that's not the weirdest distortion of the human body. You ever see anyone wearing those "ear stretchers"? Stretchers are big plastic rings that you wear in your earlobe. The goal is to make the earlobe hole as big as possible. I have no fucking idea why this is a worthy goal. Would you hire someone walking around with 2-inch wide holes in their earlobes, tattoo sleeves, and multiple tongue piercings? I sure as hell wouldn't.
Drives me nuts when people have improper usage of "their, there, and they're". I lump them in the same category as people who use nonsense words such as "fucktard", "Buybull" and "Americunts". They tend to also double and triple post their scribble.
Hey now, I use the portmanteau "fucktard" all the time, but I surely do know the difference between "they're", "their", and "there". Furthermore, the only times I double post are when the ZH gremlins are out causing havoc.
What have you got against the portmanteau "fucktard"? It's the perfect way to describe so many people, to wit: "I can't wait for Joe Biden to run for President. He's such a fucktard that I will surely be able to collect many more foot-in-mouth moments for my 'Best of Uncle Joe' montage!"
And it was not I who gave you the red.
Fucktard, go read your Buybull and have your one brain cell pickled, you goddam ignorant Americunt.
"...retards..."
"...they will get all huffy and say spelling isn't important in life."
"...tatooes..."
Funny.
Can't entirely blame the school system: demographic changes too.
well spending any money on schools would be "socialism" so we can't do that, and of course, trying to stop the flood of 'undocumented' immigrants would be racist, so we need to hire more translators and if the class is mixed with English and Spanish speaking kids... well the english speakers will just have to check their white privilege and wait for Ramon to catch up.
Meanwhile blueblood WASPS and Jews continue to go to the prep schools that are direct lines to the Ivies {if you aren't affirmatively actioned or legacied in}.
Does it make me horrible that I don't give a flying fuck how well kids score in state sponsored indoctrination centers?
It gets worse. In 1995 the SAT was re-normed adding 100 points to everyone's score “just for showing up.”
Sam Blumenfeld wrote in 2011 “that the educators have been able to fool Americans much longer than we could have ever imagined” regarding “the decline of literacy in America and the continued dumbing down of Americans.” They did it by finagling the scores…
“In 1994, the College Board decided to ‘recenter’ the scoring scale. What had happened since the original 200-800 scale was made in 1941 is that in 1994 the students’ average scores were well below the 500 average of previous generations, which simply reflected the steady dumbing down taking place in American education. In 1994, the verbal “average” was 423, some 77 points below the 500 average, and the math “average” of 479 was 21 points below the 500 average.
“Which meant that even the 469 average verbal score made by independent school test takers was well below the 1941 average of 500! And yet those same test takers scored 54 points above the 1994 average of 423. In other words, in 1994 the average student was a lot dumber than the average student of 1941, and the smarter students in 1994 were dumber than the average students of 1941. The College Board explained:
Beginning with the high school class of 1996, the College Board will recenter the scales, based on a more contemporary reference group. This means that the average score will once again be at or about the center of the scale — 500 — for a new reference group from the 1990s....
Setting the average verbal and math scores at 500 means that most students’ scores will be higher. So if a student scored a verbal score of about 430 and a math score of about 470 before recentering, the score would be about 500 for both verbal and math when the test is recentered.
“,,, The average verbal score in 2011 was 498. If we wish to see what that score would be in pre-centering terms, we would simply subtract 87 points from 498, which would give us a pre-centered score of 411. In other words, in 1972 the average pre-centered verbal score was 453. Today (2011) it is 411, a decline of 42 points in pre-centered calculation — 89 points lower than the average in 1941.”
http://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/education/item/353-sat-scores-hit-rock-bottom
The National Center for Education Statistics breaks down average scores for students taking the SAT-Critical reading test by race as follows: White, Black, Mexican American, Puerto Rican, Other Hispanic, Asian/Pacific Islander, American Indian/Alaska Native, Other.
And, now, not to be outdone, the University of California Board of Regents system has further “reformed" i.e., dumbed down, freshman admissions in order to admit more Latinos and reduce whites to “second most accepted group” by how? In the Regents’ own words: “It removes unnecessary barriers like the SAT Subject Tests and sends a welcoming message to a larger and more diverse pool of applicants than UC has previously drawn.”
And what was the percentage of the nation's age group taking the SAT in 1941, compared to today? Or 1972, even? Today, everybody wants to go to college because of the conditioning. Hell in 1941, I'd think there were as many 18 yr. olds who didn't complete highschool as who did.
So in 1941, only the educated "cream" of the demographic took the test. The rest were working on the farm or in their father's trade.
College was intended to provide further study and qualifications for those careers that required advanced knowledge. It was never intended to be the politically correct high school level degree that it has become. And back in the days before the bankers and socialists took over the universities, you did not have to be a member of the wealthy cream to attend; you could work your way through college and many did.
In short, a college degree is meaningless if graduates have no knowledge beyond what former high school students acquired. And a nation that destroys educational opportunities for advanced knowledge in required fields by leveling all playing fields is doomed.
As for working on the farm, this is the eighth-grade final exam from 1895 from Salina, KS. It was taken from the original document on file at the Smoky Valley Genealogical Society and Library in Salina, KS and reprinted by the Salina Journal.
EXAMINATION GRADUATION QUESTIONS
OF SALINE COUNTY, KANSAS
April 13, 1895
J.W. Armstrong, County Superintendent.
Examinations at Salina, New Cambria, Gypsum City, Assaria, Falun, Bavaria, and District No. 74 (in Glendale Twp.)
Reading and Penmanship. - The Examination will be oral, and the Penmanship of Applicants will be graded from the manuscripts
Grammar (Time, one hour)
1. Give nine rules for the use of Capital Letters.
2. Name the Parts of Speech and define those that have no modifications.
3. Define Verse, Stanza and Paragraph.
4. What are the Principal Parts of a verb? Give Principal Parts of do, lie, lay and run.
5. Define Case, Illustrate each Case.
6. What is Punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of Punctuation.
7-10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.
Arithmetic (Time, 1.25 hours)
1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.
2. A wagon box is 2 ft. deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold?
3. If a load of wheat weighs 3942 lbs., what is it worth at 50 cts. per bu, deducting 1050 lbs. for tare?
4. District No. 33 has a valuation of $35,000. What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104 for incidentals?
5. Find cost of 6720 lbs. coal at $6.00 per ton.
6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.
7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft. long at $.20 per inch?
8. Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent.
9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, the distance around which is 640 rods?
10. Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt.
U.S. History (Time, 45 minutes)
1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided.
2. Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus.
3. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.
4. Show the territorial growth of the United States.
5. Tell what you can of the history of Kansas.
6. Describe three of the most prominent battles of the Rebellion.
7. Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton, Bell, Lincoln, Penn, and Howe?
8. Name events connected with the following dates: 1607, 1620, 1800, 1849, and 1865?
Orthography (Time, one hour)
1. What is meant by the following: Alphabet, phonetic orthography, etymology, syllabication?
2. What are elementary sounds? How classified?
3. What are the following, and give examples of each: Trigraph, subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, linguals?
4. Give four substitutes for caret 'u'.
5. Give two rules for spelling words with final 'e'. Name two exceptions under each rule.
6. Give two uses of silent letters in spelling. Illustrate each.
7. Define the following prefixes and use in connection with a word: Bi, dis, mis, pre, semi, post, non, inter, mono, super.
8. Mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following, and name the sign that indicates the sound: Card, ball, mercy, sir, odd, cell, rise, blood, fare, last.
9. Use the following correctly in sentences, Cite, site, sight, fane, fain, feign, vane, vain, vein, raze, raise, rays.
10. Write 10 words frequently mispronounced and indicate pronunciation by use of diacritical marks and by syllabication.
Geography (Time, one hour)
1. What is climate? Upon what does climate depend?
2. How do you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas?
3. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?
4. Describe the mountains of N.A.
5. Name and describe the following: Monrovia, Odessa, Denver, Manitoba, Hecla, Yukon, St. Helena, Juan Fernandez, Aspinwall and Orinoco.
6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S.
7. Name all the republics of Europe and give capital of each.
8. Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same latitude?
9. Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to the sources of rivers.
10. Describe the movements of the earth. Give inclination of the earth.
Health (Time, 45 minutes)
1. Where are the saliva, gastric juice, and bile secreted? What is the use of each in digestion?
2. How does nutrition reach the circulation?
3. What is the function of the liver? Of the kidneys?
4. How would you stop the flow of blood from an artery in the case of laceration?
5. Give some general directions that you think would be beneficial to preserve the human body in a state of health.
http://www.barefootsworld.net/1895finalexam.html
didn't know much about:
flushing a toilet
world war II
starting a car
finding the power button on a computer
times they are achanging
Standardized tests CAN NOT test intelligence. Those who invented languages in the first place never took one, nor did any of the Founding Fathers. Standardized tests , such as SAT, are the tools to dumb students down because they enforce conformity. Period.
What this all really means is you will be discriminated against if you are smart, and disqualified from certain college's.
After all, you would have to be an idiot to go into debt for a worthless degree.
Especially if you enter that degree knowing you are moronic.
Who needs math skills or reading comprehension? All we need is for everybody to think having 2 daddies is a beautiful thing , and that diversity is a good thing in and of itself and utopia will result. At least that's what the public school system is calling education.
How about having three ex-husbands while trying to deny people from having two dadies?
As for diversity, it allows fascists to remain acceptable and flourish in American life, so there's that.
3 Ex husbands for a WOMAN - so what?
Really, homos are so nasty and disgusting, but I guess the Mormons can get back to basics since polygamy should not be illlegal.
Neither 3 ex-husbands nor 2 daddies have anything to do with teaching the 3 R's instead of wasting education time with liberal indoctrination no matter which "cause of the week" it choses to waste time instilling.
Back in the 1970's only kids who were going to College and could afford it, took the test. It was a much smaller pool of much smarter students. The lower SAT scores currently being reported are from a MUCH larger pool and includes huge amounts stupider students.
This in no way represents "Americans Have Never Been Dumber."
So you are confirming that statement.
Now its out in the open. Then it was hidden under the money divide carpet.
All thats happened is that under the Dems; after Reagan and Bush Snr's social spend budget cuts, the spend on getting people into the higher education circuit ramped up but did not create a more educated youth on a broader base. It created a huge bureaucracy of those who allowed "education" to become a "canned" product like junk food.
All this only goes to show that the American psyche is geared to entice people to the mindless culture of Teevee not to the thinking culture of those who value knowledge.
AMerica CHOSE : Mindless teevee and American Idol are our way of life like HUGE cups of popcorn and watching Terminator or Diehard. They decided to make it dumber !
When the obese of butt and the thin of mind correspond to AMerican educated Elites' Casino dreams of making money on Subprimes, of ensuring Hollywoodian factory's superproduction of violence and consumersim razmattaz brings in the bucks, you end up checkmating responsible citizenship. Our elites make society.
American Zeitgeist : Fight club, but on the screen; alas now coming post financial capitalism's Lehman demise to Main street like Gangs of New York !
This looks like becoming the new urban world where Terminator will have walked out of the screen onto the streets of Ferguson with his drone brigade and laser beams.
Raqa comes to first world. And America elects Trump ?
Lol ! American Alice meets Prince Charming.
I suspect much of this is:
Reading comprehension was basically flat from 1981 to 2008. Math peaked in the mid-2000's.
Somebody ought to try comparing the movements in the SAT score to unemployment rates, wage rates, etc., and see if there's any real pattern.
Last time I was in the USA, I was living in London at the time. I had a conversation with some young guy in a bar.
I told him I was from London , so he said ''Hey you know so and so?? He lives in London.. I told him with straight face , ''Sure, in fact, London area has 15 million people and I just had a beer with that guy last week''.
He said, ''Wow, thats cool, dude''.
I had to leave because I couldn't keep a straight face any longer
On the other hand, perhaps he was going to call you a lying sack of shit, but knowing you were a visitor to this country he decided to simply patronize you with a polite comment instead.
I seriously doubt it, when was the last time you met a polite person that wasn't slobbering all over himself in an American Bar.
hahaha, I don't think so Arthur, du Scheisskopf.
Somebody asks you what you think about something, and you don't.
You hate us so much yet you still keep coming back.....and regardless of what country you're currently in, you can bet you'll be in a bar.
I haven't been back since 2002, Buster. I haven't been in a bar since I retired in '06.
Try again, Buster.
Who needs good test scores when you can just join the Free Shit Army?
You take that back! How dare you criticize bankers, CEOs, and their idiot offspring - I'm sorry, children?
Idiot offspring, read the police reports on a Monday morn in the Hamptons...rolled over SUV's, drug arrests...
Yawn, just the fruits of the Progressive agenda coming to bear. It requires a dumb electorate, FSA.
Progressively more stupid.
I remember when I was a kid, I had a hard time sitting still and.paying attention in class. When the teacher had enough, she picked me up by the ear and hauled me to the pricipal to bave my ass whipped.I was immediately eturned to class with eyes wetand redfaced. It had a dramatic effect not just on me, but the entire class.
Today I would have been placed on ritalin and classmates wouldnt have ever witnessed consequences for bad behavior.
And you think this was a good thing? No state employee has the right to do ANYTHING to my kids. Of course, my kids do not attend educational concentration camps.
ETA: Does anyone here actually think it's good for an 8 year old kid to be cooped up indoors sitting at a fucking desk all day?!
No, and that is a large part of the problem. Way back when I was in elementary school, we had two recesses per day. And we were out there unless it was below zero. We ran off all of that excess energy & got back to learning.
I don't support all of this preschool "education" at public schools either. Young children need to run around, explore, & play. They are not ready to sit at a desk all day.
Sorry, but the whole school system is a bad idea.
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"classmates wouldn't have ever witnessed consequences for bad behavior."
except for the drooling and uncontrolled bathroom issues....
This is literally a no-brainer.
Take a hard look around you. If you still believe we are just as smart as 50 years ago or even 10, then it is you who are dumb, right along with the rest of 'em.
Most days I wish I was cripplingly dumb.
There is no doubt that many public schools in the U.S. are in need of drastic improvement. However, the SAT is not a gauge of basic intelligence. Societies like Mensa (for example) do not accept SAT scores as a basis for membership on exams taken after 1994. The SAT may (or may not) be a good predictor of how a kid will perform in college etc., but it is not an I.Q. test.
Yes, there are plenty of people here who may be ignorant or distracted, but that doesn't mean that average I.Q. scores are plunging. Visit cities like Austin, TX or Boston or Seattle or Raleigh, NC or NYC or San Francisco or Palo Alto etc. and you will find scores of intelligent, tech-savvy kids there. Technological innovations are (and have been for a long time) happening here. Don't judge "Americans" by the sampling of troglodytes you see on 'Cops' or 'The Jerry Springer Show' or by SAT scores of kids from sub-par public schools. The public school system, as it pertains to primary and secondary education, stinks.
I know educators from elitist private high schools in the US. They were all directed by the administration to hand out good grades and not require students to learn.
The ENTIRE education system stinks when central bankers run amuck as the reward system becomes corrupted.
GM too... And Detroit.... Chicago today.