I'm shocked...

I recently had to tell a college senior what a blog was. Really?

Perhaps the level of ignorance in history of displayed by todays high school students is matched by the level of ignorance of science displayed by Common Core. What are these results compared to in the study? The NY Times article mentions the test was given in 1986, but says nothing about who it was administered to and how they fared relative to the recent test group. Without any points of comparison, this study tells us nothing new. Anyone who has ever watched Jay Leno knows that many people know shockingly little about history, current events, science... you name it.

Also, I'd like to say Common Core's conclusions are a little suspect. I don't see why we can blame this specifically on No Child Left behind. We have limited resources and there is only so much you can teach uninterested high school students against their will. Until the culture these kids experience at home changes and they show up to school with an interest in learning we have to keep our expectations more reasonable. Getting some of these kids through school with the basic sets of skills (reading, writing, math and science) to function in society is hard enough as it is. But with everyone insisting improvement in these areas can't be at the expensive of History, Art, Music of Athletics at some point it just becomes impossible.