School board members shell out tax money to find out their heads are full of straw

It is really nice to know that our public education leaders on the Clark County School Board are so conscientious about their jobs that they would spend our money to learn what color their brains are.

Now we know Terri Janison, after filling out the highly scientific Emergenetics questionnaire, has a red brain and Carolyn Edwards has a blue brain, but are they more spring or autumn?

After reading that the School Board shelled out tax money to pay for some psychobabble test to determine how each of them thinks, my first question was: Do any of them think, period?

Maybe they should take an I.Q. test. Better yet a G.I. test — gullibility index.

Here is some of the quackery foisted by Emergenetics:

“Our personalities emerge from our genetics and are further shaped by our ongoing life experiences.”

Thank you, madame Ph.D., for that startling scientific observation. Who’d’ve ever guessed that we are part nature and part nurture without your exhaustive research on 300,000 suckers? I mean clinical studies.

“Emergenetics is a unique and flexible approach to personality profiling that is based on the latest brain research. It’s easy to find out more about yourself by taking our straightforward, online Emergenetics questionnaire.”

For which you will gladly pay a nominal fee, of course. In the case of our board members, $59 apiece, plus expenses and per diem and walking around money and incidentals and overhead and under the table and …

“From your answers, we use our innovative and proprietary system to mathematically convert your strengths into percentiles and generate a colorful Emergenetics Profile using four Thinking Attributes (Analytical, Structural, Social, and Conceptual) and three Behavioral Attributes (Expressiveness, Assertiveness, and Flexibility). Like snowflakes, each Profile is unique; a visual representation of who you are, how you think and your natural strengths. And with Emergenetics, you never have to choose one attribute over another. Our profile shows you the big picture, and can tell you a great deal about yourself and those around you.”

The fundamental principle of Emergenetics is: A fool and his money are soon parted. Or it the case of those with their snouts in the tax coffers, our money.

I guarantee you that anyone with a modicum of gray matter — much less blue for "clear, logical or rational thinking" as Emergenetics would have you believe — could spend a few minutes reviewing the questionnaire, then fill it in four different ways to arrive at all four different brain colors touted by the company.

I have an idea. Let’s ask each and every one of the board members to take the high school proficiency test required for graduation and report their scores. Now, that would be revealing.

These are the people in charge of educating our youth?