If the old saying about children being our future is true, we might as well just call it a day. The latest batch of standardized test scores from Pennsylvania are in and let me tell you, things look grim.

The state Department of Education released the 2021 results from the Pennsylvania State Standardized Assessments (PSSAs), which are given to third through eighth graders. They also released the Keystone Exams, given to 11th graders. Outside of biology, all test scores were in the gutter.

“Third-grade proficiency scores, for instance, fell from 61.9% to 58.3% on English and 56% to 47.3% on math, while eighth-grade scores dropped from 57.9% to 52.6% on English and 32.2% to 22.1% on math.”

via The Inquirer

Pennsylvania’s kids are getting stupider by the hour

At this rate I shudder to think of how dumb these kids will be by the time I need one of them to perform my liver transplant in 20 years. There’s no way any of these kids can be trusted and I’ll probably end up with a canned chicken liver.

The article goes on to explain that a large number of kids didn’t take the tests because of COVID. The others who actually took the test were probably all virtual, which shouldn’t really count either. How anyone could sit through a year of school on Zoom and then be asked to take some standardized test is beyond me, but regardless, the test results aren’t great.

This sounds absolutely insane, but maybe we should look to New Jersey for the future of America? We know of at least one class full of show-offs that mastered the Rubik’s Cube earlier this year, so it’s possible all hope is not lost.

That being said, what are the odds the kids that didn’t go to school last year are somehow smarter?

I know that there are a lot of folks out there that discount the ability of standardized tests to gauge intelligence. But they’re probably the same people that failed miserably. So you have to take that with a grain of salt.

Who knows, maybe we’ll get lucky and our future leaders on PA don’t need no education.

Mandatory credit: legal planet