[yalurker]

This comment is so absurdly wrong and offensive I had to read it several times fearing I was missing some sarcasm or satire. I'm sure you didn't mean it as such, so here is some information from someone who went to school in the midwest.

Schools in the midwest do not focus on "skills associated with living on a farm". Even in agriculture-centric Iowa farm labor is about 8% of the population, the other 92% of people are employed in offices/stores/factories/etc. For comparison, 5% of workers in California are employed as farm laborers for some part of the year.

The schools entire focus is on university preparation (often to a fault, many students would probably be better suited by a more vocational focus). No public school is teaching anyone to read the bible, and to my knowledge private Catholic or other religious schools are no more common in the midwest than in New York or California.

Ignorant stereotypes based on state/region are just as foolish as any other ignorant stereotype.

[nickpinkston]

Yea, where I went to high school (rural Western, PA), kids would bring guns to school for demonstrating something for a physics class (real story), history / social studies was very pro-American biased, and there were many funded clubs and activities around hunting / fishing / outdoors. Oh yea, everyone got the first two days of deer season off of school too - whether you took advantage or not.

[icco]

I don't know, I grew up in both the bay area, and a more rural part of California, and there was definitely an agricultural bend once you moved to an area where 60% of the graduating class ended up not going to college. There is a little bit of satire in there, but it is also something noticeable from my experience.