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As with all socialist/fascist/commie/evil dum policies, the less educated, free and empowered the population, the more POWER theyhave. The evil dums have tried for 40 years to convince blacks that they are so downtrodden and stupid (Repubs fault don't ya know) that only some fascist Elitist Dum can take care of them. Luckily most Blacks didn't fall for it.

The teachers UNIONS hate the idea of testing. They might have to educate children instead of using them as political pawns.

I hate the idea of testing too. Reason - who gets to write the test?

As long as the test is published, where the public can review it I think testing is a good idea. If the test questions are kept secret though, I think they are a horrible idea. Why? Because what is to stop this from becoming a question:

How do you feel about the government raising taxes to pay for medical care for the country's population?
a) good
b) bad
c) conflicted
d) none of the above

Well, humn. That would be pretty horrible (and not nearly as devious as I'm sure the "PC" crowed could get either).

Who writes the test and determines what is correct and incorrect is the crucial question.

And now for my opinion on the article: Stupid is as stupid does. I don't know how they tested for "IQ" - and since it seems that people in technologically advanced countries did better than the stone age countries, I'd guess that the test had a bias. Go ahead and say that the middle east is backwards, and that the Amazons are Neolithic, but if you were dropped naked into their environment to live in, I'd be shocked if you were able to survive - regardless of your IQ. Forget nutrition, and education - the reason that the countries that scored well, scored well, is because they have leisure time. Time to think instead of time that is spent putting food on the fire is what makes the "IQ" go up. When the society in general has that time - not just the upper-crust, that is when the economy and culture will thrive.

China is having economic woes because China is still communist however you slice their "capitalist experiment" which means the government has the power of life and death over the general population at a whim and the flick of a crop - stealing leisure thinking time and replacing it with worry for survival/thinking only about today. I'm not even going to try to address the former USSR, that one is too complicated to get into with just a FR post. I guess that is enough of a rant for now :).