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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I'm doing the audition circuit out in Hollywood big time these days, so it wouldn't surprise me to come home and find the apartment a little dusty. Mom always found cleaning to be in defiance of her religion, and dad thinks dusting demeans his manliness. I would say it's the high-pitched girl voice and purple vinyl jacket, but I don't want to get his ire up. Anyway, the dust is no surprise. And in fact, I'm not really surprised to find a gang war between my dad and lesbians either.

I knew some fallout was coming from my sister's revelation she's a homosexual, and dad's gang was getting dangerously full of itself, so it makes sense the two would eventually crash into each other. At least that's what I'm telling myself.

Cassandra and her girlfriend Steve tried to make a new family connection, part of some therapy or something, Cassandra's attempt to heal all the emotional scars in her life that led her into Harvard law and becoming a lawyer, instead of the path I took of pre-teen superstardom and my brother Poot's path of cult worship. She was doing well, too, she at least got to the point where mom was cool with it. Of course, mom said she always liked lesbians, she just didn't know why they all followed each other off a cliff to their deaths. Once again, mom not exactly Harvard material, as Cassandra always says.

If only dad could be so understanding. I suppose I could cut him a little slack by saying he was still struggling to keep control of his gang, the Baiters. Uncle Luke suggested the name because they attract so much jailbait, supposedly. I totally agree with them, as I was telling dad. I think they're the masters of attracting younger girls. Hopefully they'll take my suggestion and start calling themselves the Master Baiters.

But my own enjoyment aside, nothing challenges dad's masculinity more than fully-clothed lesbians. He and Cassandra never got along while we were growing up, he never did stop calling her "the other one." And Cassandra's partner Steve keeps telling her to stand up for herself, which makes for more tension than you could shake a tense stick at. Dad was just trying to taunt them after a while, his way of looking cool in front of the gang. I know he had to have some clue "the rugmunchers" wasn't a politically-correct way to refer to them. Cassandra told me so over Christmas and he must have heard. Anyway, it wasn't long before things blew up and Steve's friends in the National Wymans Collective began to protest.

Should be no surprise dad saw the group of leathernecks out front and took them as a threat to his turf. It was good for dad, in a way, since he rallied the gang together behind him. Uncle Luke put aside his differences and the fight for control of the gang was over, at least temporarily. They challenged the Wymans Collective to a rumble, and who knew, Steve can't turn down a challenge.

Actually, the rumble hasn't happened just yet, it's set for later Friday night this week, after Steve's lecture at NYU about the phallogenic oppression of the menstrual cycle, and dad sews the names on the back of the jackets. But this is a by-the-numbers thing for dad, so I predict the fight was short, the Wymans Collective fought the good fight and overcame, and probably three of the four members of dad's Master Baiters survived. Dad's crafty enough and knows when to abandon a good fight, so I assume he climbed on Freddy Mercury's back and got the hell out of there when the odds turned against him. If Uncle Luke bought the farm, maybe that will put the gang disputes to an end, and maybe even dad learned a little bit of respect for Cassandra and her new pals. In the meantime, I got to find a place in California and erase all excuse for coming back to this apartment.

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I admit I have been away from my game for quite a while, so forgive me if some of my best conspiracy theories have already been doled out to you from lesser sources. Have you heard yet that Kim Jong Il is a Cabbage Patch Kid?

Oh, yeah. Well, it's not secret over there. You know how non-Chinese Asian culture has this weird hang-up on celebrating all things America. If you thought it was just the Japanese with their Shonen Knife bands and pompadour haircuts, guess again, friend. The Koreans have always admired our culture, except for the years we were bombing theirs into non-existence. Chiefly their big beloved American fad has always been Cabbage Patch Kids.

In fact, that's how Kim Jong Il managed to seize power. The Koreans weren't initially fond of him, but he used his dad's neverending supply of wealth (by Korean standards) to buy the remnants of the Coleco company and hire scientists to integrate over time his DNA with remaining Cabbage Patch Doll design prints.

It was a brilliant ploy, and you can certainly see the resemblance when you see pictures of the chubby-cheeked, short-statured little menace. But I wouldn't credit him with the originality. His older brother whom we've never heard of, Kim Jong Duc, he was the sharp knife in the drawer over there. He conceived of the idea, then foolishly entrusted his staff, all old football buddies from college, to gather the necessary data to put the plan into operation. Well, to North Koreans, Cabbage Patch and Garbage Pail Kid fads are virtually indistinguishable, so you can imagine the horrible offspring from that failed experiment. He was locked away in some basement in the palace of Pongyang, leaving Kim Jong Il unquestionably in charge of the dynasty, and for once, the attractive one in the family.

It took little more than a show of his adorable little adoption papers for the North Korean people to fall in love with this porky dictator, and they pledged undying loyalty to him immediately. Of course, there's little ways to prove this to most people who suspect the information false. Nothing short of pulling down Kim Jong Il's pants and exposing the signature of Xavier Roberts on his fat back cheeks will constitute proof in their eyes. But proof only constitutes one-third of proving something, as we know. The other two-thirds involves wanting to believe it's true and stating it very loudly for all to hear.

Don't insult yourself by asking me where I get my information, since we both know I'm not telling you. Let's just say the guy is an old confidant who has never failed me before, and be reassured I would tell you his name if I could remember. But now that we know the cause of Kim Jong Il's popularity, and I would say you could list linking Cabbage Patch DNA with his own is a possible reason for his deep-seated insanity, we can make every attempt possible to roust him from power.

The CIA, those lovable self-starters, are already at work on this, of course. Given that assassination will cause an international incident, possible war, and create a martyr out of remaining Cabbage Patch Dolls, the Agency has only one solid alternative solution: Create a beloved dictator even more popular than Kim Jong Il. To this end they've been experimenting with genetically-altered Smurf men and other such experiments. Early attempts to create a human-Donkey Kong hybrid were embarrassing failures, and the guy is still throwing barrels off the top of the Sears Tower. More on this as it develops, of course, and if any of you happen to see a living human being who looks strikingly like Howdy Doody, don't hesitate to contact me here for a suitable reward. I'll make you a reporter or something, promise.

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