everywhere like, such as…
Yeah, but she’s cute. Her error, if you can call it that, was in hiring the same company that coaches GW for public speaking engagements.
djm
I was listening to NPR a while back when they announced that a high school teacher did a study in which a full 75% of high school seniors answered incorrectly when asked who we fought the Revolutionary War against.
The pre-schooler with me announced at the time, “That’s stupid! It was England!”
75%. 
For anyone in Ohio, highschoolers are now required to take the Ohio Graduation Test in order to graduate. The thing that gets me is it only tests up to sophomore level knowledge. In my experience (though I have yet to actually experience it), it would be more prudent to have it test senior knowledge. After all, you are allowed to retake them up to ten times or something like that. And even with it being so easy, close to 75% of highschoolers in the Cleveland area have to retake the tests or even their senior year (no one jump on me if the number’s wrong).
Also…my Mom once interviewed a guy who didn’t know New Mexico was a state… 
Evenstr,
(I like your name!) The statistics for where I went to highschool are currently something like:
-Test for 8th grade education in order to graduate high school
-Start testing in 8th grade and allow re-testing several times a year through the senior year of high school
-100s of seniors per school are still trying to pass the test in their last weeks of school and many apply for exceptions to test during the summer.
-The test asks real hard-hitting questions like…
showing a full-page picture of a measuring cup, with clearly written measurements and a gray line for how full it is with liquid (and the gray line hitting on one of the explicitly marked measurements), then asking the student to select from the four multiple choice answers how full the measuring cup is. I would call that 3rd grade level, but apparently a large percentage of high school seniors think it is beyond them.
It’s no wonder they can’t find the US on a map!
Thanks Katie.
Being in a school environment so often it seems to me that the school systems are contradicting themselves. For example: I’ve heard it said many times by teachers that the workplace needs more intelligent people; that jobs are going to be jard to come by because of outsourcing and cheap labor. And yet, if the tests being taken are to be considered “the mark” it appears that we need less knowledge than ever. Rather than spend the time to teach us what we need to know, in my experience, teachers are spending half the year preparing for tests. In my opinion we are setting to much store by numbers. “We want all students to get at least X number of points but they’re only getting Y number. I know, we’ll just make the tests easier! After all, if you mess up at work you’ll have three times a year four three years to redo it.” Sorry, rant over 
She should have answered the question with a question.
Something along the lines of:
“Where did that poll information come from? 1/5 of Americans can’t locate the US on a world map? Really? I’m not sure I believe that statement, but if it is indeed true, it’s probably due to poor attempts at educating our citizens. Or perhaps the pollsters simply asked each other if they could locate the US on a world map.”
Oh dear. I couldn’t quite make out what she was saying in some parts. The place where she says “salma people out there don’t have baps” is one place. I guess “baps” could mean maps. But I listened many times and “salma” did not sound anything like “so many” which I would have expected in that sentence. Maybe the sentence is clear to someone else and I’m on the wrong track entirely. It does seem odd that the problem would be the lack of maps, so I must be really confused 
. The other thing that seemed strange to me—did she say “Diiraq” for Iraq? I swear she said it at least twice. I am sure she was not looking forward to that part of the contest—she might do better when under less pressure. Some people, unfortunately I am one of them, can’t think on their feet very well.