EDUCATION: Being smart pays off, big

There was cause for apprehension when state schools Superintendent Kathy Cox volunteered to match wits with grade schoolers on Fox TV’s “Are You Smarter Than A 5th-Grader?”

No disrespect to Cox’s intellect, or to the comedic genius of host Jeff Foxworthy, another Georgia resident, but the point of the game show is to make guests such as Cox look, ah, stupid.

Americans appearing on the show from all walks of life have gnashed their teeth over such brain twisters as ‘What nation borders the United States to the north?’ and have come up empty.

But as it turns out, any such apprehension was groundless. Cox aced the show Friday night and Georgia’s children are the richer for it. Cox became the show’s first $1 million winner when she answered the last in a series of questions correctly, identifying Queen Victoria as the longest serving British monarch.

The superintendent plans to donate her winnings to Macon’s Georgia Academy for the Blind, Clarkston’s Atlanta Area School for the Deaf and Cave Spring’s Georgia School for the Deaf. And even better, Georgia students got a very clear lesson about the potential benefits of being smart and paying attention in school.