Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?

I kept DearSweetDave up last night as I tossed and turned and chatted out loud about my continued disbelief and just complete incomprehension over Bush's latest smoke and mirrors dance.  Is no one in our country to be held accountable and responsible for anything anymore? 

And then I thought about how we have 68 million people in this country voting for their favorite singer on American Idol each week and yet we only have 48 million people voting for their President.  Perhaps what we need is for our presidential candidates to get on stage and sing for Simon Cowell.  Since he's British, he can offer completely non-partisan critiques of each other their abilities.  Randy Jackson can comment on their ability to perhaps produce a record as good as Journey's Generations or Mariah Carey's Music Box.  And of course, Paula can dish about how beautiful everyone looks.  Then after chatting it up for a few brief minutes with Ryan Seacrest and sharing some of their 30 second sound bytes about exactly where they stand on the important issues like whether wearing white shoes before Memorial Day should be a punishable offense we can all whip out our cell phones and dial a 1-866-PRES-01 or 02 or 03 or whatever number for our favorite candidate.  And who cares if we dial more than once?  Isn't that what everyone in Florida did anyway??

It's my contention that the reason more people in America are not upset about this latest Bush debacle is because, quite frankly, they just do not even know that what he is doing is illegal.  And why don't they know?  Two reasons.  One is apathy.  People are so overloaded these days by media that they have just tuned out.  Timothy Leary would be so proud.  I do believe there is a large portion of US Citizens that not only don't know what is going on, if you told them, they'd have a very hard time understanding what all the fuss was about. Which brings me to my second reason. Our education system in this country sucks ass.  There I said it.  We are graduating more and more students who are taught "to the test" and have no critical thinking skills, much less have retained anything beyond the last multiple choice booklet that they had to memorize to make sure that their school continued to receive federal funding.

What if we actually required everyone to take a test before they could vote for the President?  Or any elected official for that matter.  The folks who want to immigrate to this country, the folks who want to become American Citizens, the ones who aren't lucky enough to have been born here, they have to actually answer nearly 100 questions about our country, our government and how it works. How many of you can answer these questions?

HOW MANY REPRESENTATIVES ARE THERE IN CONGRESS?
WHAT ARE THE THREE BRANCHES OF OUR GOVERNMENT?
WHY ARE THERE 100 SENATORS IN THE SENATE?
WHO WAS THE MAIN WRITER OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE?
WHO WAS PRESIDENT DURING THE CIVIL WAR?
WHO IS THE COMMANDER IN CHIEF OF THE U.S. MILITARY?
WHAT IS THE SUPREME LAW OF THE UNITED STATES?
WHO BECOMES THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES IF THE PRESIDENT AND VICE PRESIDENT SHOULD DIE?
THREE RIGHTS OR FREEDOMS GUARANTEED BY THE BILL OF RIGHTS?
HOW MANY SUPREME COURT JUSTICES ARE THERE?
WHAT IS THE PRIMARY DUTY OF CONGRESS?
WHAT IS THE BILL OF RIGHTS?
WHO ELECTS THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES?

It's okay if you can't.  I'm not taking names, or giving out grades.  I will share with you that I've yet to meet a person in England who can not answer all of those questions.  About OUR country.  About our government.  We certainly could not say the same for the students in our classrooms if we were to ask them about British Parliament and the Queen. Imagine, though, how different our country might be, if we were required to pass a test to vote?  We have to pass a test to drive a car.  Why not make sure that if we're going to vote for our elected officials, we at the very least understand what the true tenets of the office are that these elected officials will hold? Imagine that?

Comments

[Carman]

I can't even begin to say how disappointed I am in our nation's schools. I really can't, because I would rant beyond the boundaries of this text area.

What I really came here to say is: Isn't that last question rather dubious?