As are many states, Arkansas is trapped in a silly but expensive game of dueling frying pans: PARCC or ACT?

Political leaders and the public appear unable to understanding the bitter lessons of chasing better tests.

So, let’s consider this: Everything you need to know about the world (and frying pans) can be learned on Saturday morning cartoons—as Cyril from Break Away explains:

Cyril: You know what I’d like to be? A cartoon of some kind. You know, like when they get hit in the head with a frying pan or something, and their head looks like the frying pan, with the handle and everything? They they just go *booiing*

[shakes head]

Cyril: and their head comes back to normal? Wouldn’t that be great?

Mike: How’d you get to be so stupid, Cyril?

Cyril: I don’t know… I guess I just have a dumb heredity. What’s your excuse, Michael?

Of course, Tom and Jerry provides the ultimate visual:

And so we are left with a truly disturbing soundtrack to the standards and high-stakes testing Merry-Go-Round: