Imagine buying a new car, the one you've always wanted. You drive it for a few months and then one day it dies on you. You take it back to the dealership and they confirm that the car wasn't put together right. You find out that the manufacturer, to be fair to all auto workers in their employ, has decided not to do quality assurance testing. "It may adversely affect the plants that have training programs that aren't as good as the others," they say. Doesn't sound like a way to do business, does it? Yet that's what a liberal judge decided. The only difference is that they weren't making cars. They were making something much more important: students.

We hear all the time about liberal judges making decisions worthy of ridicule. This one, however, comes pretty close to the height of ignorance. Debra J. Saunders relays that a judge in Oakland, California, Judge Robert Freedman of Alameda County Superior Court, has granted a preliminary injunction. It prevents California from using an 8th grade math proficiency test and a 10th grade English test to ensure it's graduating seniors are actually literate before they graduate. They don't even have to score above 60% on either part of the test to pass. And they can take it multiple times. It's a 1-inch high hurdle! Yet that doesn't seem to be enough for Freedman, who apparently agrees with the plaintiff's attorney, Arturo González, who has argued that the test isn't fair because schools are not equal. So, more hand-wringing in court ensures that one of the largest and most populous states in the nation will be dumber than a box of rocks. As California goes...

And the teachers unions are concerned about homeschoolers? I guess if you can't manage your own home, you can make a good mess of someone else's. The problem, of course, is that if this lawyer and judge have their way, California high school diplomas, already pretty useless, will end up being worth less than the paper they're printed on.

Californians, bring them home where they belong.

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