What is the dumbest state? (virgin, abortion, God, birthday)

[Smoke]

Seriously. I've accused Utah of being the dumbest state before, because they had the highest percentage of people who voted for Bush, but my own native state of Florida is famous for it's political and religious insanity, and the state where I live, South Carolina, seems to make the news every day because of some moron who is celebrated here. In South Carolina, we say, "Thank God for Mississippi," but is it possible we've exceeded Mississippi in ignorance and insanity?

What's the dumbest state?

[Kungfuzed]

I grew up in Caroline County Maryland. The average SAT score in my high school was 500. The highest possible score is 1600.

[Jaymes]

I live in Georgia. We can only make fun of Alabama and Mississippi.

So, probably one of those. I think Georgia comes in something like 48th or 49th in the state rank of the SATs, though.

[doppelgänger]

If you use SAT scores as the criteria, here are the results as of 2004 by state.

Delaware, Florida, Texas, Georgia and South Carolina are the bottom five, with Hawaii dead last in verbal and Georgia dead last in math.

[jonny]

Originally Posted by MidnightBlue

Seriously. I've accused Utah of being the dumbest state before, because they had the highest percentage of people who voted for Bush, but my own native state of Florida is famous for it's political and religious insanity, and the state where I live, South Carolina, seems to make the news every day because of some moron who is celebrated here. In South Carolina, we say, "Thank God for Mississippi," but is it possible we've exceeded Mississippi in ignorance and insanity?

What's the dumbest state?

Hmm... My gut tells me West Virginia. I've heard some unbelievable stories about people in this state.

I live in Utah and I don't think that the people here are dumb. I do live in Provo though where the majority of people are either currently students or BYU grads. Kids at BYU tend to be pretty smart. Get out in the Uinta Basin and you'll probably find a high concentration of 'dumb' people.

Utahns are the most Republican people you'll find anywhere. I have a couple of theories on why this is (btw, abortion & warmongering have nothing to do with it - a high distrust of government and fear of socialism do). I don't think it's changing anytime soon and it seems to be working. Utah has a great quality of life.

[UnTheist]

T....e...x...a....s..

[Booko]

Originally Posted by doppelgänger

Delaware, Florida, Texas, Georgia and South Carolina are the bottom five, with Hawaii dead last in verbal and Georgia dead last in math.

Reason #42 why I pulled our daughter out of school. She went to the *best* HS in the state, thinks a book of Martin Gardner's logic and math puzzles is a "cool" birthday gift...and was flunking Algebra.

Funny, she's doing just fine with minimal direction from mommy. We redid Algebra I and the first half of geometry in the spring in about 6 weeks. We'll start Algebra II Tuesday, though we'll have to slow down a bit for that. She never does more than an hour of math on a school day.

I do not thank the schools for having instilled math phobia into my child. I teach her more about psychology than math when we're doing math.

Our son got through it because he's a self-starter on anything with math or physics.

[Ðanisty]

Georgia has to be the dumbest state. I've lived her for 28 years and witnessed the stupidity first hand. Besides, anyone who's ever tried to drive here knows this is the dumbest state. I'm not sure who's more to blame...the bad drivers or the bad engineers who design our roads.

Originally Posted by Booko

Reason #42 why I pulled our daughter out of school. She went to the *best* HS in the state, thinks a book of Martin Gardner's logic and math puzzles is a "cool" birthday gift...and was flunking Algebra.

Funny, she's doing just fine with minimal direction from mommy. We redid Algebra I and the first half of geometry in the spring in about 6 weeks. We'll start Algebra II Tuesday, though we'll have to slow down a bit for that. She never does more than an hour of math on a school day.

I do not thank the schools for having instilled math phobia into my child. I teach her more about psychology than math when we're doing math.

Our son got through it because he's a self-starter on anything with math or physics.

Not to mention that most of the senior year is set aside to teach the high school graduation test. Apparently going to high school isn't education enough to pass the test. Let me just say I went to school in this state and I took and passed the graduation test with flying colors. It was so easy it was boring. If I wasn't one of those people who loved learning and did it on my own time though, I guess I probably wouldn't have done so well. People in this state don't value education though...most of the teachers don't care about teaching it and most of the students don't care about learning it.

By the way, I didn't understand Algebra at all until I took Chemistry...then it all made perfect sense. I'm convinced that math is not taught well and that probably applies across the whole country. In college I tutored people in Algebra and learned that most of them were just never given the simple explanation. They didn't know why they were supposed to do certain things. Teachers tell students the steps, but don't explain them. This is the problem you have when a teacher has a natural instinct for a subject...they often have no idea how to communicate to students who don't have that instinct.

[jonny]

I didn't understand Algebra until I took Calculus. I got a D in my high school algebra class & an A in my university Calculus class. The teacher makes all the difference when it comes to math.

[Smoke]

Originally Posted by Jaymes

I live in Georgia.

Q: What's the difference between South Carolina and Georgia?
A: When people in Georgia buy a new stove, they throw the old one out in the back yard.