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Perhaps if we were simply confronted with a static situation we could work our way around the education system. But things are getting worse…. Much, much worse. In order to normalize the data needed to establish the efficacy of education programs that teach these basic skills, and therefore insure that no child is left behind (or with a chance), all the creative and individual aspects of any result sets must be removed. Unfortunately for the people who insist on this normalized data, what is really being tested is the ability to take a certain type of tests. As numerous psychologists (and an increasing number of nuero-linguistic specialists) have discovered, intelligence takes many forms in people. Few would say that Bill Gates is an idiot, but he was barely coherent in early business meetings with IBM. IBM, deeply ingrained in a standardized vision of corporate professionalism, viewed Gates as borderline brain damaged. He would attend meetings mumbling to himself and rocking back and forth to the point where people would throw up their hands and leave the meeting. Since Gates couldn’t provide data in a format that the other members of the meeting found acceptable, should we infer that Gates is not intelligent? Or should the fact that Gates is the richest man in the world who has started and run the most successfully profitable corporate enterprise in all human history tell us something more meaningful?