20% of Americans Think the Sun Orbits the Earth

# The United States is 49th in the world in literacy (the New York Times, Dec. 12, 2004).

# The United States ranked 28th out of 40 countries in mathematical literacy (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).

# Twenty percent of Americans think the sun orbits the earth. Seventeen percent believe the earth revolves around the sun once a day (The Week, Jan. 7, 2005).

# "The International Adult Literacy Survey...found that Americans with less than nine years of education 'score worse than virtually all of the other countries'" (Jeremy Rifkin's superbly documented book The European Dream: How Europe's Vision of the Future Is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream, p.78).

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School boards for -fifteen- states flunk science standards

Group gives state an 'F' in science
BY JOHN HANNA - Associated Press

TOPEKA - Kansas has some of the nation's worst science standards for public schools, a national education group says, condemning the state for rewriting its definition of science and treating evolution as a flawed theory.

The "F" grade from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute came after the State Board of Education approved the new standards last month. The Washington-based institute said Kansas' treatment of evolution was "radically compromised."

The institute reviewed standards in all states except Iowa, which doesn't have statewide guidelines, and the District of Columbia. Seven states, led by California, received "A" grades, while 15, including Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas, flunked.

Kansas' previous standards were evolution-friendly and defined science as "the human activity of seeking natural explanations for what we observe in the world around us." The new definition avoids limiting explanations to natural ones.

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Democrats: GOP puts tax cuts ahead of education

Republican budget plans put tax cuts for the wealthy ahead of education, three prominent Democratic senators told a receptive audience of nursing students Thursday.

"The health care you receive should not depend on the zip code you live in," Mikulski, D-Md., told the students at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing. "And the education you receive should not depend on your family's income."

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Sen. Paul Sarbanes, D-Md., told the nursing students that Republicans have proposed raising student loan interest rates while pursuing tax cuts that benefit the wealthy.

"When you say 'Why are you doing this. Why, are you doing this? They say 'Well, we're running a big deficit and we have to cut our spending.' And at the same time they are proposing to cut taxes," Sarbanes said.


GOP + Right-Wing Christian MoonBats = Dumbass Americans