To paraphrase what the leader of the Andean band I played with in the SF Bay area might say about them, in his customary vulgar language. I did part time work as a substitute teacher for many years, and personally, I thought that those standardized tests were rather moronic and unproductive, and certainly didn't teach any critical thinking skills whatsoever. Critical thinking used to be a big emphasis and strong point of our educational system, way back in the day, when we were much more of an actual, functioning democracy. Now, I think that the corporate powers that be that run our educational system, and so much else in this country, are only interested in producing mere technicians to work as efficient cogs in their machine. For example, I used to sub for biology classes, and one of the things that seemed remarkable was how much time was spent on genetics - which is really only a small part of biology. But then the reason why dawned on me - the main growth area was in GMO, and the GMO corporations just wanted efficient and proficient gene splicers to do their dirty work, and not raise any troublesome ethical issues, nor any troubling questions. Kinda scary when you think about it...
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