A HERD, NOT A PACK: Jeffrey Collins points to this not-very-encouraging story from Newsday:

Several government security screeners at LaGuardia Airport said that moments before they took a certification test to operate machines that detect bombs in luggage, instructors told them answers to all or most of the questions.

Four screeners interviewed separately described nearly identical scenarios from classes last month: an instructor taught material for several hours and then read and answered a series of 25 multiple-choice questions that were on an exam the screeners took immediately afterward.

“He read the questions right out of the test, word for word, answer for answer,” one screener said, adding that the 25 people in his class wrote down the correct answers on note paper and copied them onto their tests with the instructor out of the room.

A second screener, in a separate class in mid-December, said the instructor stayed in the room during the test but that the exam questions “were the same questions he asked orally just before the test.”

“It was pretty much set up so that you shouldn’t have any way to fail,” said a third screener, who, like all screeners interviewed, asked not to be named fearing retaliation. “The guy read all 25 questions to you just before he gave the test. To tell you the truth, as he gave the questions, I wrote the answers down, because he read them exactly in order.”

Jeez.