NCLB: creating a new generation of sheep?

Really, I DO want to blog on a daily basis. But I've been a little freaked out lately by the onslaught of work (teaching prep, and the giant lurking shadow of Publish Or Perish) and trying to keep the household together too. B had the flu week before last (he is still sick with a cold) and I had a cold last week (I am still not 100% but a lot better). So the week before last I made some sort of soup every night (he has dental issues too).

Now we are on to solid food. Lobsters tonight!!

My human geog students are working on a demographics project involving retrieval of census data. I give them a little guidance for how to find what they need, but I wonder what would happen if I gave them NOTHING? I've had a couple inquiries along the lines of "could you send me the link to the data, I can't find it with your instructions," to which I gently respond that the goals of the assignment are partly about the skills of info-retrieval without a recipe or step-by step "then click this" type of listing.

It's only a couple of students so I shouldn't generalize, but I have found lack of creative problem-solving and ability to deal with the unknown to be characteristic of today's college students. Sometimes, in my more cynical and paranoiac moments, I theorize that the rationale for standardized testing (like the MCAS in MA) has nothing whatsoever to do with knowledge or learning or competence, and has everything to do with socializing a population to be compliant, fill-in-the-bubble oriented, and totally incapable, by training, of independent, critical, or creative thinking. Just what a repressive, totalitarian, controlling Republican administration would want.

Please tell me I am wrong about this. Please?