Know what a standard deviation is?

The latest Chance News has a quote from the New York Times (which you can't read in the original unless you cough up or have a subscription - but if you do it's here):

"Take statistics. Sorry, but you'll find later in life that it's handy to know what a standard deviation is."
David Brooks - New York Times, March 2, 2006

(This appears on a list of core knowledge that Brooks says will be sufficient to give you a great education even if you don't make Harvard.)