Tennessee Declares Only Dumbest Kids Wanted for State Jobs
Posted on May 21, 2008
Update: Welcome Rush
Limbaugh listeners and Neal Boortz readers!
-By Warner Todd Huston
It’s true. The State of Tennessee has
officially declared that from this point forward it will accept only less
educated student applicants for state, county and city jobs in the Volunteer State. Why would the kindly folks in Nashville make such a
stupid rule? Well, it’s all about control, you see. The state controls the less
educated kids and they don’t control the ones that show higher academic
aptitude. It really is just that simple.
It has come to pass that the State of Tennessee has
officially invalidated the high school diplomas of thousands of home-schooled
Tennessee kids, at least where it concerns their eligibility to apply for the
positions of fireman, police officer, state government employee, even daycare
worker — any government job or government controlled position that the state
regulates is covered.
The reasoning the Board of Education used to justify this obscene act is
almost a sensible sounding one. Since religious schools and home-schools each
have their own curriculum that is designed by people not working for the state
government (i.e. the state Board of Education), then the state has no real
control or input in those curricula. Therefore, the state cannot make the
assumption that kids educated in institutions or via home programs meet the
standards of an officially recognized state education. Like I said, this almost
seems logical until one does a tiny bit of research. Fortunately Tennessean Rob
Shearer has done just that.
Rob points out that while the State of Tennessee is claiming
that home-schooled kids have a diploma that the state cannot insure what it
represents, the same can be said of the state approved diplomas. It turns out
that the State of Tennessee
does not require a minimum GPA for graduation from government indoctrination schools.
So, did these kids get an A, a B, or a D? We don’t really know just looking at
a diploma. The state only requires “credits”
for passing the 20 some required courses, the final determination only being
that the student be “proficient” in the class work… whatever that might mean.
Still, that aside, what about the State’s charge that home-schooled kid’s
curriculum isn’t controlled by the state and so cannot be assured as
“proficient” by the State? Again, this seems like a sensible charge. After all,
the State knows what requirements it has created and they are “official,” after
all. Isn’t it possible that the kids at home-schools and religious schools are
getting a substandard education? This is a solidly sensible concern, is it not?
Let us look at some of the data to see if the State of Tennessee Board of Ed
is correct that the education received by kids outside the government
indoctrination centers might have gotten a questionable education.
To start with, the State of Tennessee
ranks a bit lower than the national average in ACT scores. Apparently the 2007 ACT scores shows Tennessee
students (that is all students as a group, gov’t
school or otherwise) rank less than average at 20.7 whereas nationally the
average is 21.2. So, Tennessee
is already not even at the national average to begin with.
Now, to contrast that, the last comprehensive study of home-schooled
children was the ERIC
clearinghouse on Assessment and Evaluation from 1998.
Home school students did quite well in 1998 on the ACT college entrance
examination. They had an average ACT composite score of 22.8 which is .38
standard deviations above the national ACT average of 21.0 (ACT,1998).This places the average home school student in the
65th percentile of all ACT test takers.
(See full report HERE)
Ken
Marrero also points out some more interesting results in the 1998 data.
“What was the ACT composite score for Tennessee
students for 1998? In the year home schoolers
averaged 22.8 and the national average was 21.0, Tennessee’s students scored just 19.8, a
full 3 points below home schoolers. This put Tennessee ahead of only North and South
Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana and Washington
DC. The composite home school
score places them FIRST among the 51 jurisdictions represented in the study.”
That study aside, there are also data concerning the ACT test score results
for the home-schooled students of Tennessee.
The data covers the 2005 school season(page 17).
This report shows home-schooled Tennessee
students realizing a 20.7 average against the government schooled kids’ 20.5
effort.
It is also interesting that the 2005 stats are the only such data available.
It seems the ACT organization stopped delineating the differences between the
home-schooled and the government indoctrinated students. One has to wonder if
ACT has realized that governments all across the country are gearing up to
destroy home-schools and religious schools and they didn’t want to help the
home-schoolers out by showing the too obvious
excellence that home-schoolers achieve compared to
their less educated government indoctrinated contemporaries.
So, after seeing these interesting statistics, one has to wonder why the
State of Tennessee
would rather accept the least educated kids of the State to become policemen,
firemen and daycare workers? Does Tennessee really want to promote the more
stupid above its best and brightest?
Apparently it does.
But, is the State of Tennessee
much different than the rest of the nation excluding their being some of the
first to make such an overt attack against home-schools? Not really. After all,
to sanction home-schooling means the powermongers and
indoctrinators in the State would have to give up some level of power to
control the minds of our students. Our schools nation wide from top
universities to the lowest grade level are becoming the laughing stock of the
civilized world and instead of looking to give our kids the best advantage
possible to compete with an ever growing world our governments are dumbing down our curricula, tossing out standards, hiring
teachers unqualified for their positions — and then being stuck with them
forever due to overweening and anti-education unions — and generally making our
schools useless.
So, good job Tennessee.
Now that you’ve cut out the best and brightest of your own student population,
from this point forward, the citizens of Tennessee
are going to have to wonder about the competency and intelligence of every
policeman and every daycare worker in the State. They will also be forced to
realize that their wonderful state government in Nashville
has set up a situation where the best and brightest of the Volunteer State
will be leaving in droves for opportunity elsewhere.
Not too smart, Tennessee.
Not too smart at all.