I make up comedy routines in my head.  I do this a lot, which is embarrassing to admit because it's announcing how funny I think I am.  In reality, I'm not very funny at all.

Here's the set of jokes I was working out this morning on my way to work:

American kids are smart!
I've read plenty of statistics about how American children trail Asians and Europeans when it comes to test scores, but I think we've got to be honest about how difficult it is for a kid to even THINK in the English language.

For example, teachers equip kids with grammar rules. Things like: "I" before "E" except after "C."  But in reality, that's not a rule!  What about neighbor? Weigh? Deity?  I mean, it's no wonder American children fall behind at standardized tests, our society doesn't honor its own grammar rules. What is that? If we want higher scores across the country, how about we change the rule to: "I" always goes before "E," no exceptions. That's something a kid can remember.

Another thing we do to screw kids up early is, we tell them to sound words out.  We want kids to learn to read all on their own.  I like self-sufficient people, even if they're little people. So this seems like useful guidance: sound the word out.  That tip works great with words like colonial.  It doesn't work so well with colonel.  Who the hell decided to pronounce colonel like kernel?!

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That's all I've got so far.
It's not a long drive from my house to my office.  Perhaps that's a favor to the world?