School Daze
There's this news story I stumbled on today. Seems a 38-year-old middle school teacher in the Bronx, Wayne Brightly (what a name!), couldn't pass his State certification exam. He'd flunked the test too many times; this was his last chance.
So ol' Brightly gets a homeless man with a developmental disorder (you can't make this stuff up), Rubin Leitner, to take the test FOR him. He pays him two bucks. Mr. Leitner passed the exam Mr. Brightly could not; however, the State edjumacation people stumbled onto the scam because Mr. Leitner's score (posing as Mr. Brightly) was so much higher than Mr. Brightly's previous attempts.
Brightly has been suspended and may lose his -- get this -- $59,000 a year job.
There are so many things wrong with this (and with American schools in general) that I am temporarily paralyzed, unable to launch the rant that is welling up in me because too many voices are clamoring for release. Instead, I will pause, and invite you, in the words of the old Firesign Theater, "to meditate upon the pure, white light of Stupidity."
So ol' Brightly gets a homeless man with a developmental disorder (you can't make this stuff up), Rubin Leitner, to take the test FOR him. He pays him two bucks. Mr. Leitner passed the exam Mr. Brightly could not; however, the State edjumacation people stumbled onto the scam because Mr. Leitner's score (posing as Mr. Brightly) was so much higher than Mr. Brightly's previous attempts.
Brightly has been suspended and may lose his -- get this -- $59,000 a year job.
There are so many things wrong with this (and with American schools in general) that I am temporarily paralyzed, unable to launch the rant that is welling up in me because too many voices are clamoring for release. Instead, I will pause, and invite you, in the words of the old Firesign Theater, "to meditate upon the pure, white light of Stupidity."