High Schools institute Turing Test for Graduation

Stung by reports that bots have been surreptitiously receiving diplomas in many districts, and by the mounting legal challenges of standards-based exit exams, high schools across the country are replacing their exit exam with the dreaded Turing Test.

"We may no longer be able to require high school graduates to know how to do arithmetic, or form a complete sentence, or know who the first President was, but dammit - we're going to make sure the people we graduate are at least human beings!" the state commissioner of education in California fumed.

The Turing Test, invented in 1950 by Alan Turing, was designed to distinguish man from machine, based on an earlier test designed to distinguish man from woman. To pass the Turing Test, the student must convince an unseen examiner that they are in fact a man through normal conversation. The test has previously found no other applications, and is not even offered through testing giant EST, which could care less about humanitarian concerns.

Students who fail the Turing Test may be eligible for an alternative diploma or a certificate of authenticity from Microsoft.

The move comes after the discovery that an internet diploma-seeker, identified only by the screenname "cmyhotpix" received a diploma from the online New Horizons Alternative High School based in Alameda. An investigation by school officials revealed that the student was in fact a mindless bot, and that "her" responses to test questions consisted entirely of repeating the question back in a different order or monotonously inviting the examiner to view her webcam. She was even offered a scholarship for photography by a local community college.

Trial runs of the new test, however, have produced resistance from surprising corners of the academic edifice.

"This test discriminates against nerds!" Poindexter Arigato, head of the Santa Monica Nerds, Geeks, and Star Wars Fans Association whined nasally. Other members of the club, easily identified by their "I'm Feeling Lucky" Google t-shirts, snorted in agreement. "They didn't seem to think 'recompiling my kernel' is something a human being would actually do for fun on weekends," another member sporting an LCD belt- buckle that scrolled the latest top internet search items complained.

"Oh my biggest heck!" a teen from Utah exclaimed on learning that she had failed. "OMG vv#47 4 [20[X!" another 1337'ed.

A few of the traditional opponents of exit testing have lined up against the Turing Test as well.

"Failure to achieve status as a human being will condemn these students to a lifetime of professional sports, pop music, Hollywood acting, and NBC newscasting," an advocate warned.

In response to the brewing crisis, the Red Cross has announced it will offer humanitarian assistance to "people" who fail the test. "Machines", however, will be ineligible and have to be serviced by ASE-certified mechanics.