Not since some genius tried to blame head lice on NCLB have I seen anything as ridiculous as this education researchiness (via Freakonomics Blog). 

The authors find a correlation between a student's birth month and scores on the Indiana state test (ISTEP).  So far, so good.  But then they leap to the conclusion that the use of pesticides during the summer leads to lower test scores for kids born during the summer months.

The paper's not out yet, but Freakonomics Blog thinks the researchers have no evidence to support the pesticide link. 

The worst part of all this is it comes out of my alma mater, Indiana University. No, that's the second worst part -- the worst part is that I was born in mid-July, when the smell of pesticides was heavy in the Indiana air.

*Bigfoot is a weed-killer; Lorsban is a pesticide.  They're both made by the same manufacturer and were advertised ad nauseam on TV in Indiana a few decades ago.