The Fact-Checker, by Michael Dobbs

This one was a waste of time. Let's try to stick to meaningful claims that mislead, not hyperbole.

The math skills of 9 year olds as measured on one test is a terribly limited way to measure how "smart we are." You need to gather more statistics, or withhold judgment on this one until you can do so.

In any case, Gravel was pointing our what a poor job we've done electing leaders.. . . which is a pretty non-objective measure of our smartness - and folds in the lack of intelligence of our system as well (over which there are few arguments)

Trust me, the fact that most kids today are completely reliant on calculators to do simple arithmetic (and indeed the NAEP seems to allow them) puts the lie to any claim that students are somehow smarter in math than they were in 1982.

And regarding the "lack of intelligence of our system", the political system we have here is brilliant. There are flaws, but we get a reset button every 2, 4, or 6 years and the system is designed to deter simple majority rule.

What do the math skills of 9 year olds have to do with critically thinking about whom to vote for president? Come to think of it, your assessment/analysis (sic) is a beautiful proof point affirming Gravel's assertions.

Ditto the previous comments. One skill measured for one age group is NOT a strong indicator of intelligence. The specific claim that "38 per cent of fourth graders cannot read at basic level" was never addressed.

Gravel also may have been alluding to the fact that Americans are extremely uninformed real-world issues (which do no include sports and celebrity gossip).

Come now; "you" selected the basis and which "studies" to use to justify your unbiased perspective, but made no mention of asking Gravel or Maher any other basis for their claims, or having even given them a chance to respond or explain.

You admit SAT scores did fall as Maher indicated, though of course those scores are not a reasonable basis for any conclusion, for either you or Maher. And you fail to speak to the reading scores at all.

I'm not suggesting your point isn't true, but fair is fair.

I think it's clear that Gravel's comments are not amenable to direct factual verification or falsification, given the vagueness of the term "intelligence." The math scores are as objective a measure as any. In addition, having lived in Canada, Germany, Spain, and India, I am not at all convinced that citizens of other countries are necessarily better informed than Americans. They know more about American politics, but the typical educated Indian knows nothing about Europe, and the typical European knows nothing about India.

Gee,

quote from above article:
"Americans are getting fatter and dumber... If things are going bad, just remember who put these people in power." -- Former Sen. Mike Gravel, Democratic candidate for president, Yahoo/Slate/Huffington Post debate mashup, September 2007."

I'd have to apply that to this pie holer too -who put this yackoo in office that was apparantly 'dumb' enough to put someone in office who would say the voter was 'dumb' enough to put someone in office who in turn promoted someone was dumb enough to vote someone that was dumb enough to say someone would be dumb enough to be put into office by someone dumb enough to do so.

I just don't think this one is a floater folks - someone clean the pool. !

Where is Bill Murray these days when you need him.

heh

Posted by: rob | September 19, 2007 11:41 AM

Rob Wrote:
"
Trust me, the fact that most kids today are completely reliant on calculators to do simple arithmetic (and indeed the NAEP seems to allow them) puts the lie to any claim that students are somehow smarter in math than they were in 1982.

And regarding the "lack of intelligence of our system", the political system we have here is brilliant. There are flaws, but we get a reset button every 2, 4, or 6 years and the system is designed to deter simple majority rule.
"
Posted by: rob | September 19, 2007 11:41 AM

-- Reply begins here --

rob, be careful with that careful there, last I check the highest paying job on the HOmeland Security site at 130k a year was an IT specialist. E.G. someone who actually learned how to USE that calculator.

What part of Star Wars did you like and dislike regarding Lucas's invitation to thought of 'Turn off the machine Luke' or 'Will the machine save you'

Didn't mechanization foolery PEAK in the 1950's fully automated kitchen for the gals ?

I don't buy into the calculator critique anymore - especially when a more advanced calculator was used to score the article.

Come on, there is NO WAY you can deprive a child of a computer (go study at the institute for advanced study at Princeton where the definition of 'computer' was COMPLETELY OVERHAULED when in a tea-spoon of DNA, the travelling salesman problem haunting mathematics was solved) and say - lookey lookey - you incompetent technologically dependent dumbass -

I swear, when kids get to Trig and Calc ? If you don't make use of the technology we have ? Hey pal, you take your Slide Rule (which is ALSO a calculator) no, better - you go do those log calculation by hand - lol

forget it - sending a message that the machine will not save you to any child who wants to compete for a job in IBM's outsourced IT division to India - really SHOULD learn how to use a calculator.

I do suppose you COULD design a nuclear weapon without the use of a calculator though, it HAS been done !

bush's worst nightmare:

If you think that "being able to use a calculator" is all that is required to be an IT specialist, you are mistaken. (On a side note, if you think that the Department of Homeland Security is a good example of where our best and brightest are making their mark, you have an altogether different problem of perception).

The point is that complete dependence on machines such as calculators to perform simple actions, such as arithmetic, leaves our students complacent, incapable of reasoning or logic-based thinking, and thus unable to perform in higher-level math such as trigonometry or calculus. I would venture to guess that many Indian schools, which produce the IT workers you mention, do not have the funds necessary to give every student a calculator.

Furthermore, responding in a childish manner is counterproductive to a discussion on the serious issue of how to best address the fact that American students must be the best in the world in order to keep high-skill jobs from draining across the ocean.

PS Being a fairly big Star Wars fan, I feel like your analogy shot you in the foot. Luke wasn't able to destroy the Death Star until he turned the computer off and used his own abilities. The same needs to happen with America's students.

I don't think that this is the sort of statement that one can check with just one statistic. Saying that Americans are getting "dumber" is so vague and was probably referring to other things. Sure, Maher may have tweaked teh SAT scores to prove his point, and maybe he was the one who was fudging the facts a little, but to say that one NAEP statistic proves that Americans are getting smarter is just as deceptive.

Come on, stick to facts that can be confirmed, not vague statements like "Americans are getting dumber". I disagree with his sentiment, since I know a lot of smart Americans, but that doesn't make it a lie.

Lazy critical journalism is worse than not being critical at all.

Although you may be onto something, in that the average American is about as easily influenced as a 9 year old...

"America will get the president it deserves."

While the sheer, raw numbers plainly show that Math scores are up in Elementary school children, your facts do not cover reading, writing, geography, history and other subjects for the age group cited. It also does not cover High School education and knowledge on these subjects (which, I think is a much better picture than nine-year-olds), or average American Adults.

The SATs may not cover everybody, but they cover a sizable portion of the United States' population and it provides a reasonable guideline for where everybody stands. My point is that although not everybody takes the SAT or ACT tests, enough of them do to give an idea of the educational stance of those leaving High School and going into College.

To quote your article: "...The main reason that SAT scores have been declining is that more students are taking the test, and the test-taking population is getting more diverse. Over the last two decades, math scores have gone up steadily, while reading scores have remained flat."

This may be a true statement, however, what about Social Studies/Civics? The Sciences? Reading is staying the same, but what about writing? Also, if you have more people taking the tests and they all perform well, then your numbers will stay the same, at least in proportion to each other. However, if your increased test-takers do not do as well, that will drag the average down (just as if the increased number of test-takers will pull the average up if they tend to do well).

The problem with pulling statistics and using them for arguments is where one pulls their data. Your reports pull data for nine-year-olds, and that proves your point. But what if Mike Gravel was pulling his data and information from High School tests or Dropout rates? What if he was also speaking on his own personal opinion and observations about how Americans tend to behave? I remember watching various shows (when I used to watch TV), that would have people running around and asking random bits of common information such as about their government (Constitution, Bill of Rights, etc.), simple geography (Capital of the state they live in, largest river in the United States, etc.) and similar questions...more often than not those asked the questions had no bloody clue what the answer was. Could they be nervous in front of the camera? Perhaps. Plants by the studio? That could be true too.

Either way, his casual observation could, in fact, conflict or even contradict your own statistics. Would they be wrong? Not necessarily, because again, it all depends on where you pull your facts from.

I will say this in the defense of Mike Gravel though: My own casual observations of Americans have shown me that a lot of them tend to not be very knowledgeable or understanding about the world that they live in. They do not care about anything that happens to exist outside of their own back yards so to speak. They choose to ignore important issues or take action...even when it is in their best interests to do both. When an issue pops up, they do not do their own research or form their own opinions, and instead default to "Talking Heads" and whatever they are told to think by the media and politicians.
If you take things like that, things that cannot be shown on a standardized test and/or standardized tests that cover a demographic closer to an adult, I think you will find that Mike Gravel's words are not entirely false or misplaced.

Let me put it this way:
The last question on the "$64,000 Question" (1950's) was "Name the members of Washington's first cabinet". Hmmm, toughie....
The last question on 'Who wants to be a millionaire" (1990's) was "How far is the Earth from the Sun". Hmmm, no-brainer... And it was a multiple choice question!

And obviously, Americans are getting fatter - if they got any fatter, they'd burst.

Isn't the appointment and election of GWB, written-in-stone proof of Gravel's 2nd point?

It's a soft analysis. You say, "A claim of "tangible progress" was not totally unreasonable in 2004." so it was just unreasonable, but not totally? That's not my idea of refutation. The ad does not need footnotes, it rings of truth, and that's where advertising is judged. And, it asks a question, it does not make a statement. The Wash Post like most media is in bed with the enemy - Bush.

Wow they didn't even try to look like they are unbiased on this one. They found one test that contradicts Gravel, and they posted it as three icons. I think it's quite obvious by now that AS A RESULT OF CONTINUALLY CUTTING EDUCATION FUNDING, CHILDREN ARE NOW LESS EDUCATED! Give me a break.

Good site! I'll stay reading! Keep improving!

What a ridiculous article. This is more like some mickey mouse segment you might see on fox news or The Daily Show. How can you try and make light of two subjects the man is obviously and genuinely concerned about, the health and education of young people. You're taking what he said entirely out of context in order to further marginalize one of the most progressive and downright honest candidates in years. Yet another shameful example of the mainstream U.S. media's perpetual policy at maintaining the corporate political status quo. It reminds me of the kind of cheap tabloid journalism you might see in an English red-top.Over in this par

What a ridiculous article. This is more like some mickey mouse segment you might see on fox news or The Daily Show. How can you try and make light of two subjects the man is obviously and genuinely concerned about, the health and education of young people. You're taking what he said entirely out of context in order to further marginalize one of the most progressive and downright honest candidates in years, someone who could make lasting improvements for your country. Yet another shameful example of the mainstream U.S. media's perpetual policy at maintaining the corporate political status quo. It reminds me of the kind of cheap-shot, tabloid journalism you might see in an English red-top. Over in this part of the world, many people see most Americans (young and old) as being fat and stupid, and you wonder why?

JB, Ireland.

What a ridiculous article. This is more like some mickey mouse segment you might see on fox news or The Daily Show. How can you try and make light of two subjects the man is obviously and genuinely concerned about, the health and education of young people. You're taking what he said entirely out of context in order to further marginalize one of the most progressive and downright honest candidates in years, someone who could make lasting improvements for your country. Yet another shameful example of the mainstream U.S. media's perpetual policy at maintaining the corporate political status quo. It reminds me of the kind of cheap-shot, tabloid journalism you might see in an English red-top. Over in this part of the world, many people see most Americans (young and old) as being fat and stupid, and you wonder why?

JB, Ireland.

L1NEIO nacktbild persoenliche ,