Californian's Is Stoopid

[JohnRich 4]

Press Release:

Nation’s Smartest States

Vermont has earned the title of the nation’s Smartest State. This honor was announced today in "Education State Rankings 2006-2007". At the opposite end of the scale, Arizona repeated as the lowest ranking state.

The Smartest State Award is based on 21 key elementary and secondary education indicators reported from Education State Rankings, an annual reference book that compares the 50 United States in hundreds of education-related categories. The 2006 award measures states based on factors including expenditures for instruction, pupil-teacher ratios, high school graduation and dropout rates, and reading, writing and math proficiency...

Press Release

Rankings

Seriously, why is California so low on that list, 47th out of 50, in the same boat as states like Mississippi and Alabama?

[BillyVance 34]

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Seriously, why is California so low on that list, 47th out of 50, in the same boat as states like Mississippi and Alabama?

Maybe because California has the highest per capita of dumb blondes in the U.S.??

"Mediocre people don't like high achievers, and high achievers don't like mediocre people." - SIX TIME National Champion coach Nick Saban

[Andy9o8 0]

I notice the better the average skydiving weather, the worse the rankings.

It's the skydivers' fault.

[quade 3]

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Seriously, why is California so low on that list, 47th out of 50, in the same boat as states like Mississippi and Alabama?

From the web site in question;

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The table above shows how each state scored in Morgan Quitno’s fifth annual Smartest State Award.

In other words, it's this one guy's opinion based on some factors he decided on.

The "rankings" have nothing to do with intelligence or education, simply how things shook out according to the factors HE decided were relevant.

http://www.morganquitno.com/edfact06.htm#FACTORS

Pick different factors and you'd end up with different results.

Then again, I'm sure anyone reading this would have been "smart" enough to figure that out all by themselves.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[Andrewwhyte 1]

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Pick different factors and you'd end up with different results.

Those who do poorly in these types of rankings always say that. If you look at the criteria used, however, I think that this particular snapshot is in fact a useful if not definitive look at how schools are doing at their prime function; teaching children.
Likely one of the main reasons California did poorly is a higher than average English Second Language pupils.

[quade 3]

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Likely one of the main reasons California did poorly is a higher than average English Second Language pupils.

I'd agree IF all the factors were RESULTS based, but they're not.

Look at the factors!

A LOT of the factors were dollar based, which is perhaps a measure of the "cost / benefit & efficiency of education" but really has nothing to do with education itself.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[diverdad 0]

Certainly can't have anything to do with California's way of teaching the kids.
All this "new math" and other "new" classes can't possibly have anything to do with it.........DAH!

Scott

[Casurf1978 0]

RAND did a study of this last year.

http://www.rand.org/news/press.05/01.03.html

[quade 3]

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RAND did a study of this last year.

http://www.rand.org/news/press.05/01.03.html

Interesting verbage in that, "lagging". No real mention of actually by how much. And one other factor is you simply HAVE to wonder who paid RAND for their paper. My guess would be educators asking for funding. Something I'm fine with but let's call a spade a spade here. RAND doesn't do JACK without somebody paying for their opinion and whoever is paying is ALWAYS going to have their point "proven" for them.

THIS on the other hand does, in fact agree that in 2004 California WAS lagging, but by a far smaller amount than one would guess by looking at JohnRich's original post. It shows California as a bit below the national average, by 6 points.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[kallend 1,673]

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Seriously, why is California so low on that list, 47th out of 50, in the same boat as states like Mississippi and Alabama?

From the web site in question;

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The table above shows how each state scored in Morgan Quitno’s fifth annual Smartest State Award.

In other words, it's this one guy's opinion based on some factors he decided on.

ves.

Indeed. California is 11th in the % of population with professional degrees, 11th in % with bachelor's degrees, and 13th in median household income (an indirect indicator of achievement). (source - US Census).

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[Skyrad 0]

Stoopid? Is that cool street talk John? In which case I do belive you're saying that California is 'Da bomb' as I belive you street youths say. Of course if you're not using street slang then you're not able to spell 'Stupid' which I'd venture reveals more about you than it does about the State of California.

When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

[JohnRich 4]

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Stoopid? Is that cool street talk John? In which case I do belive you're saying that California is 'Da bomb' as I belive you street youths say. Of course if you're not using street slang then you're not able to spell 'Stupid' which I'd venture reveals more about you than it does about the State of California.

If I wasn't playing with using street slang, then I also shouldn't have put a possessive apostrophe on "Californian's", and I shouldn't have capitalized "Is".

You should have also noted that at the end of my posting, I used the phrase "seriously though", which should have been a clue to you that the preceding had been done tongue-in-cheek. I guess you missed that too.

Since you caught only one of three errors in the subject title, and also missed the nature of the post, I'd venture that those reveal more about you than it does about the State of California.

Tit for tat.

[Amazon 7]

MMMMM Popcorn......MMMMMM

[Skyrad 0]

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Stoopid? Is that cool street talk John? In which case I do belive you're saying that California is 'Da bomb' as I belive you street youths say. Of course if you're not using street slang then you're not able to spell 'Stupid' which I'd venture reveals more about you than it does about the State of California.

If I wasn't playing with using street slang, then I also shouldn't have put a possessive apostrophe on "Californian's", and I shouldn't have capitalized "Is".

You should have also noted that at the end of my posting, I used the phrase "seriously though", which should have been a clue to you that the preceding had been done tongue-in-cheek. I guess you missed that too.

Since you caught only one of three errors in the subject title, and also missed the nature of the post, I'd venture that those reveal more about you than it does about the State of California.

Tit for tat.

LOL You crack me up

When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

[kelpdiver 2]

you can overlook the massive influx of asian and latino immigrants into California and not expect it to show up.

We're not too worried about it. And at the higher levels, we got Cal, UCSF, Stanford and Caltech. Easily can argue that's 4 of the top 10 universities in the nation, and not much worse on a world level.

Somehow there are enough stoopid californians to support two biotech meccas as well as silicon valley.

[SkyDekker 1,150]

I am surprised nobody has matched up blue, red and the ranking....