re: I am the Department of Education: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

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often thought that if you're going to go to some kind of tracking system for kids, the best way to separate them out is not through some standardized test, but just whether their parents show up when called.

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I'll give you an easier one that combines both of those. Give standardized tests to all first graders or heck maybe all kindergarteners. Make note of the results. The kids who showed up ahead of all of their peers are most likely to have parents will answer the phone when you call. Both of my children showed up to school supposedly reading at the third grade level. I don't sit here and think wow my children are the next Einstein. I simply recognize that their peers Across the Nation have generally s***** parents. I mean I don't mean to be rude here but neither of my children are exceptionally bright. They just learned what I taught them. Apparently it's some major life accomplishment to be able to read a complete sentence when you're in kindergarten and add two or three digit numbers. I'll bet that if you did what I said above you'd find that it was more predictive than almost any other thing you could do