Yo, genius. Study finds Idaho is No. 51 smartest state. (Hey, ain’t there 50 states?)

Warning: You will feel dumber after reading this.

Even dumber than you usually do after reading my stuff, smart arse.

Actually, don’t worry about it. You won’t be able to digest all these words, anyway. But, just in case, here’s the gist — in one-syllable bites.

We. Be. Real. Stupid. Idaho.

Lloyd and Harry dumb. Drooling morons compared to the rest of America, according to a new study from SafeHome.org.

To quote the media release: “Idaho is the No. 51 smartest state in the U.S.”

This confuses me for two reasons.

1) There are only 50 states in the U.S.

2) SafeHome.org is a website that reviews home security systems, not grad-school applications.

3) I’m an Idahoan, so I’m easily confused.

We’re definitely skeptical of these findings, right? We should be. Rejecting reality is what unintelligent folks call winning! This is just another obscure website spitting out random findings using questionable methodology, right?

Right?

The analysis kept things pretty simple. Thankfully. That way, we can follow along. It broke down results in four straightforward statistical categories.

Ready for some, like, long division? Here’s how Idaho finished.

1) Adults 25 and older with bachelor’s degrees: 18.2 percent.

2) Adjusted high school graduation rate in 2017: 80 percent.

3) Median SAT score in 2018-2019: 993.

4) Average percentage of ACT takers meeting subject benchmarks: 57 percent.

Combine the numbers, and voila! (That’s Spanish.) Idaho easily has the lowest ranking in the entire U.S. of A. Including Washington, D.C. That’s how Idaho finished as the 51st worst “state.”

We choose to live in Idaho for many reasons. Apparently, hunting, fishing, camping and hiking with Mensa members is not one of them.

The 10 smartest states are New Jersey, Utah, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Montana, Virginia, Kansas, Wisconsin, Oregon and Minnesota. (Utah and Montana are top 10?)

The 10 “least smartest states,” in SafeHome.org’s words, are Idaho, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, Louisiana, Alaska, Hawaii, Mississippi, Ohio and Kentucky.

We’re so hella dumb, our Idaho hick brains drag down the entire West — transforming it into the most dim-witted part of the country.

“The average score by region was mostly pretty evenly split,” the study observes, “though the West had by far the lowest average score, owing largely to Idaho’s poor performance.”

Look, I get that nobody in the Gem State cares about grades. Why would we? But I don’t like looking like the absolute fool. So how do we fix this?

Got me. Problems are hard.

As I spellchecked this column for the 11th time, I Googled the words “Idaho education.” The top headlines seemed to indicate a vague pattern: “Boise State, Idaho State spell out cost-cutting plans,” “Idaho teachers are the working poor” and, sounding slightly more promising, “Idaho is far from its K-12 literacy goals. The State invested $26M in programs this year.”

If we hope to boost our IQs a tiny bit, maybe we need to remember that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

Oops, wait. Didn’t Einstein supposedly invent that saying?

As an Idahoan, I can’t relate.

This story was originally published December 17, 2019 at 12:33 PM.