The Environmental Protection Agency polluted the Animas River, so obviously that arm of government should be closed. Should we also shut down the Department of Education because people are getting stupider? – Thanks, Tom
That argument will resonate amongst those with angry bumper-sticker political philosophies. Heck, it might even get picked up by a bloviating presidential candidate.
As to which candidate, it’s your choice. They’re all gasbags. But that’s another topic.
Getting rid of the EPA will not clean the Animas River. Shuttering the Department of Education won’t result in a smarter populace.
It’s like defunding the National Weather Service to stop droughts and tornados.
That being said, a lot of folks are mad, and they want change. The problem is that not all change is progress.
The Department of Education’s problems are many. But are people getting more stupid? After all, that’s the justification for eliminating that agency.
First, we have to determine if there has been a rise in the number of morons, idiots, nitwits, blockheads and imbeciles. And how do we measure this?
Use standardized tests, of course! Data will show if stupidity is on the rise.
Naturally, we’ll start with law schools.
The average score on the multiple-choice portion of the July bar exam fell 1.6 points from last year, reaching its lowest level since 1988, Bloomberg reported last week.
Some blamed a harder test. Others blamed a “decline in student quality.”
Yet no one called for a national program called “No Lawyer Left Behind.”
Next, let’s look at college entrance exams. The Class of 2015 bombed them.
High school grads had the lowest critical reading score on the SAT college entrance exam in more than 40 years, according to the College Board.
The news wasn’t any better for the ACT test.
A third of test-takers scored below the ACT benchmark for college success, which supposedly gives a student a 75 percent chance of getting a grade of C or above.
Maybe we’re looking at the wrong exams.
If the opposite of stupidity is intelligence, we should look at IQ scores. Here’s where things get interesting.
IQ tests are standardized, but they are updated periodically so that the median score will remain 100.
When scientists compared test-takers completing a new test versus an older one, the average increase is three IQ points per decade. It’s been happening steadily and consistently for well over a century.
This is called the Flynn effect, named after James R. Flynn, a brilliant scholar who brought wide attention to rising test scores and what it means to the world.
Flynn has a great TED Talk in which he explains why your IQ is higher than your grandparents. Google it. It’s fascinating.
“If you score the people a century ago against modern norms, they would have an average IQ of 70. If you score us against their norms, we would have an average IQ of 130,” Flynn notes.
“Were our immediate ancestors on the verge of mental retardation? Because 70 is normally the score for mental retardation. Or are we on the verge of all being gifted? Because 130 is the cutting line for giftedness.”
The answer is that our world has become incredibly complex and our brains have adapted, embracing abstractions and rejecting a black-and-white mindset.
Which gets back to the question. Sort of.
If IQ scores are rising, shouldn’t the Department of Education be expanded?
That makes the angry bumper-sticker crowd insane – because it’s taking their absolutist logic against and using it against them.
Sadly, as intelligence rises, it seems that wisdom diminishes.
Therefore, let’s establish a new government agency, the U.S. Department of Wisdom.
It’ll never happen.
There’s a standardized test to see if you can define “sagacious perspicacity.”
But there’s no exam to see if you actually posses it.
Email questions to actionline@durangoherald.com or mail them to Action Line, The Durango Herald, 1275 Main Ave., Durango, CO 81301. You can request anonymity if you take advantage of a wisdom-building event this week, the Durango Public Library’s Literary Festival.
