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For we are the dumBEST, for three years running More

For we are the dumBEST, for three years running

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  • As if it weren't bad enough constantly being asked, "So are you part of the US or Mexico?" by every fifth visitor;-) (And yes, sadly, I have heard folks ask that about NM at least half a dozen times during my time in CA & OR.)
  • Teachers are less likely to report violence by white students, black students are less likely to graduate given equal test scores, and so forth. Which would explain why these scores bare a close relationship to a whiteness ranking (with New England at the top).

    Why not just give us the raw data, instead of weighting the different factors in some arbitrary way and producing a score? I suppose that then you don't have your own newspaper article, you just have a reference to other people's research.

  • Well (Score:2)

    by trmj ( 579410 )
    I moved from the #9 state to the #1 state this year. Yay for me! I get to feel even more inferior than before!

    At least I'm surrounding myself with those who are smarter than me.
  • Look at how poorly California did. Also, part of the score is determined by the amount of money spent per student. I don't think that should be linearly weighted, as a local example of school district mismanagement [wikipedia.org] shows. (They were the poorest-performing, but I doubt they were the poorest.) Then again, it's only one component of the overall score, so it may be pretty close, after all.

    That reminds me, I think over half of Dallas ISD students are still dropping out before graduating from high school. And it'
    • I wonder if the number of dropouts who later go on to get their GED is considered in this article (I am guessing probably not). And I wonder how they computed the violence scores; maybe NM schools simply report more incidents (as opposed ignoring them) than the schools in other states?
      • Who knows? NM, AZ, and NV probably report reservation school numbers, too. And you have to expect that, with the lack of basic necessities most of those kids have, their statistics are going to have an effect.
  • Can you get a job working on a computers if you know the difference between a hard drive and a PDA?
    • The market is horrible; Sandia labs and Los Alamos are two of the biggies in the state (big horkin' degree required). The only other biggies are the universities, which don't pay well (benefits are ok, especially if you want to take free classes). Oh and the casinos have jobs now and then. There are a fair number of small companies, but all you gotta do is look through the papers to realize prospects are pretty grim here :-|
    • Can you get a job working with computers if you know the difference between a hard drive and a PDA?

      Yes: Unloading them off of a truck.

  • Well, some state has to be dumbest. But I would have bet the plantation it would have been Mississippi or Alabama. Goes to show, you don't ever know.
  • /me chants We're number two! We're number two!

    In any case, do you feel like you're in the dumbest state? We all deal with idiots, (even in the second smartest state w00t), but do feel like you're dealing with an excessive amount? Or are you desensitized? Just curious...
    • It certainly doesn't seem any dumber than any other state I have lived in. In fact, NC had some pretty damn dumb people living in it. Many average joe folks there didn't know that NM was a state. Then again, I don't know how many people here could find NC on a map either (but I bet they at least know that it is a state). Then again I hang around a bunch of geeky engineers and teachers so what do I know :-)

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