U.S. Students Dumber than Ever

ourth and eighth-graders tested nationwide really screwed the pooch on a recent history exam, while 12th-graders were about as dumb as expected, the Education Department announced Thursday. The Bush administration was not impressed, calling the results "a shocking wake-up call of historicalistical proportions." More than 29,000 students took the history test that's part of the National Assessment of Educational Ineptitude, known informally as "Operation: Dumbo Drop."

Among fourth-graders, 67 percent had at least a basic understanding of the concept of history itself, though few could name any specific events. 13 percent showed no sense of events happening in the past at all, beyond a vague concept of everything happening "yesterday." That was three percentage points higher than in 1994, the last time the test was given.

Some 29,600 students, 87 percent of them apparently high on drugs at the time, took the test in 2001. The randomly selected test-takers answered multiple-choice, short-answer and essay questions with only a slightly higher success rate than a control group of lab mice trying to play "Axel-F" on a small Casio keyboard during the exam. Students were alarmingly befuddled by questions like these for fourth-graders:

Pilgrims came to North American in the 1700's fleeing what in Europe?
(a) the bubonic plague.
(b) religious persecution.
(c) Napoleon's army.
(d) Godzilla.


Only 45 percent answered correctly with (b).

What was a major cause of the Civil War?
(a) East Coast rap calling out West Coast rap.
(b) People in the North and in the South disagreed over slavery.
(c) Montel Williams.
(d) The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand.


Correct answer: (b); 57 percent answered correctly.

The answers to the multiple-choice questions, however, looked like the minutes from a meeting of MENSA when compared to the short-answer section of the test. Asked to write in their own answer to the question "Who led Germany during World War II?" 57 percent of the students wrote "Arnold Schwarzenegger." The second and third most-frequent responses were no less alarming: "Tupac!" and "banana."

Deanna Norvich, an education historian and NAEI board member, called the students' answers "fuckin' hilarious" and said the seniors' scores were "about what you'd expect from a bunch of Taco Bell trainees."

"Since the seniors are very close to voting age or already have reached it, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see more professional wrestlers elected to public office in the near future. I'd be frightened if I weren't looking at the bright side: No way in hell someone younger than me is going to come and take my job in the next millennia. These kids couldn't operate a salad shooter."

She added: "Clearly, our high schools are failing to teach U.S. history well to these paste-eating morons. And by the time they're seniors there's no way you're going to get them to stop fucking and doing blow long enough to learn about Benjamin Franklin. It's just not happening."

According to the National Assessment Governing Board, the independent group that develops the NAEI for the Education Department, only 17 percent of fourth-graders scored above the "vegetable" level. Of those, 11 percent scored at the "head injury" level and another 3 percent fell into the higher "slow country cousin" grouping. Alarmingly, only 2 percent scored in the "can handle plastic silverware" group, the highest level attained in the test this year.

To be sure, many questions were tough, especially those asked of older students. An example:

There were many significant factors that led American colonists to form the First Continental Congress in 1774. Among them were colonial frustrations with laws passed by the British Parliament. What is your name?

Thirty-nine percent got that one right.

The NAEI is given in different subjects periodically, though always to predictably pathetic results that make adults feel smart again after their bank account has been drained by a ten year-old hacker. The 2001 national history test was the first given since 1994, when it was designed to test the effects of crop dusting on the nation's youth.

NAEI scores in geography are scheduled to be released this summer, with Vermont crossing its fingers that the state will be recognized for the first time ever on an NAEI exam.

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"There was a roar of the crowd, the chilly wind blowing, the rattling of the weak bleachers we all sat on. It was the biggest game of the year, and our high school was involved. It was Oscar Wilde High School vs. the state champs, Karl Marx H.S. for the title of greatest football team of all time. Though I could be mistaken on the details, my mind grows weary over the years.

I was not a football player myself, but a cherished member of the Oscar Wilde Yahtzee Team. My school pride knew no bounds, including legal ones. I shouted and cheered for the home team through the match, touting our strong defense and lack of homosexuals on the team. I made numerous allusions to the murder of loved ones of opposing team members, but nothing could shake them. They had ice in their veins, or at least freon, if they had drunk from the sports drink I offered the players before the game.

Our boys were not daunted, though. Everyone wanted a piece of the other team, even the guys on the bench and the guys who had been kicked off the team for befriending non-caucasions. So many wanted a piece of the other team that the other team would have to bring in many more players just to have enough pieces to go around, even cut up into many small pieces.

The game was tough, and even playing our best we could only come within mere points of the opposing team in the last few minutes. Then, as contrivance would have it, my brother Goose was brought in off the bench to score the deciding field goal in the last few seconds.

Goose knew the pressure was on, as every fan on every side had yelled to him as he came in from the field. He didn't have a regulation helmet, but fortunately a hairstyle he wore at the time qualified as a helmet by the lax rules of the era. Goose sized up the goal, huffed and puffed like a wolf at the door of a pig house, and ran up to kick the goal.

He caught the ball with the side of his foot and it rolled just a few feet before stopping. The game was over and our team had lost, which was fine with me. As much school spirit as I had, it was a thousand times more satisfying to see Goose humiliated in a way I would forever lord over him. Even to this day. How you like them apples, Goose?"

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Thankfully for you, the eager readers, nobody blew up any giant mammals on the international scene this week and we can finally get down to the nitty gritty dirt band on Omar Bricks' adventures through the afterlife. For those of you interested in the full sensory experience, I'd recommend putting Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir" on infinite repeat while you read the column. If you read it at the correct rate of speed I think you'll find things syncing up in some pretty mind-blowing ways. If you're a slow reader or retarded or something, I can't promise it won't make you dizzy or colossally sick, so sync at your own risk here people.

Longtime Bricks fans, or newer fans with the cajones to dig deep into the archives, will no doubt remember back in 2002 when the Bricksmobile went all Casino on me and engulfed half of my neighborhood in flames, blowing yours truly into my neighbor Dale's azaleas. Thanks to the intense charring within the blast radius, some cocky son of a bitch from the fire department decided nobody could have lived through the explosion, and after I loudly agreed the police took that as gospel and Omar Bricks was legally dead. At the time I thought it would just be a funny lark and a cool way to mess with pizza delivery guys, but it turned out to be a real godsend when all my neighbors tried to sue the recently-departed Omar Bricks for fucking up their houses. Wouldn't you know it was their shitty luck that Omar's twin cousin from Cuba who was watching the house indefinitely hadn't inherited any of the vast Bricks fortune.

This was all fine and dandy for months until all my appearance of hard work at the commune finally paid off in the form of a company car, which turned out to be a cop magnet even when Red Bagel wasn't driving it. I hadn't been behind the wheel more than three minutes when a cop pulled me over while I was taking a short cut through the park and told me my license had expired. I guess that's one of the down-sides of being legally dead that they don't tell you about when you're bluffing the fire department. There should be a law, but what are you going to do?

The next day I go down to the DMV to perform the seemingly-simple task of proving I'm still alive so I won't have to walk out in the cold every time I want to go down to the DQ for a scoop. I figured this would be fairly easy, considering that me even showing up at the DMV proves to all but the biggest of idiots that I am, in fact, alive. Being the stand-up supporter of democracy that I am, I decided to make things even easier on the powers that be by standing up on the counter at the DMV, holding up my death certificate, and announcing "Omar Bricks is Dead, Long Live Omar Bricks!" to the huddled masses assembled on the DMV killing floor. Most of the idiots there didn't know what the hell was going on, though one dude did clap for a while. I figured my point had been made, and I was on my way to go home and ring in the new Omar Bricks with a toast of Miller High Life when some closeted DMV dude stopped me at the door and told me I'd have to wait in line like all the others shmoes slouching their way toward the guillotine.

I guess I wasn't the only one there who had been mistaken for dead, though from the looks of most of those guys I should've guessed it. So I wait in line like a peasant, hoping the chick up front will spot me in line, remember me from my column or a police line-up somewhere and wave me away like "Dude, you're obviously alive! Get the fuck out of here!" and I'll be all thumbs-up and ass out the door. Well, any of you who've ever been to the DMV know that kind of magic just doesn't go down, and I was in that line for three fuckin' days. You may think I'm exaggerating that figure somewhat for hilarious effect, but I'm shitting you not, three days. Every time I got out of line to take a piss I was stuck at the back again, if I'd known that was going to be the case I wouldn't have loaded up on Hawaiian Punch and pop rocks on the way over, that shit makes you piss like a Hawaiian grandma or something, every ten minutes like a goddamned glockenspiel.

At some point on day three, weak bladders got the best of all the dorks in front of me in line and I finally won a round of DMV Survivor. I grooved my way up to the counter and laid the smooth on the three-headed DMV beast manning that station, who reached deep into her bag of pain and pulled out some bullshit about how I had to go to the city courthouse and get my death certificate revoked and blah blah blah before I could even talk about getting my license renewed. I briefly considered cracking open a big can of profanity on the whole scene, but a cooler part of my head prevailed and I seamlessly transitioned to Plan B.

You'd be surprised how far a good Scarface accent and a black market birth certificate can get you these days. It was enough to get Omar Bricks' mysterious "Coovan" cousin a driver's license, anyway. So remember Polio fans, if you see me behind the wheel of a car or you're talking to the highway patrol, remember one simple slogan: Omar Bricks is Dead, Long Live Navarro Bricks!

Bricks out.

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