Thursday, January 26, 2012

Good Analysis

Of the State of the Union. I forgot about this, which was another silly point, along with the bullet proof vest that can stop any bullet --

And the worst was the bizarre proposal for states to force students to stay in school until graduation or the age of 18. Beyond the obvious enforcement questions, by the time people drop out of high school, they're normally already badly lagging their classmates, with low grades and test scores, and high rates of truancy.


This is an obvious case of putting the cart before the horse. Kids who drop out of high school are delinquent types who are of course, more likely to commit crimes and get in trouble later. By forcing them to stay in school, this won't magically turn them into honor students. If it were that easy, don't you think we would have, you know, done it already? This reminds me of football announcers who say things like "The 49ers win whenever Frank Gore rushes the ball 20 times, so why don't they just give him the ball 20 times and then they'll automatically win." See, they are mixing up the order. When the 49ers are ahead, they will tend to rush the ball more and when they are ahead, are more likely to win. Anyway, this kind of stupidity will seemingly go on forever so long as human beings exist.

No comments: