OKAY, AMERICAN PUBLIC
SCHOOL TEACHERS: Raise your hand if you’ve heard the education experts moaning
about all your failures.
Raise your hand again if you’ve seen the charts and graphs
they use to prove you’re failing.
You know the statistics. The horrible graduation rates in
many cities and states. Worst of all, you have the poor showing U.S. students
make in international academic competitions. I mean come on!
Who but you could possibly be to blame?
 |
According to the school reformers, people like me were the problem. |
Ask Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York. That pompous ass
will set you straight. If he could have his way, he said recently, he’d fire
half the teachers in New York City and start from scratch. But the evil unions
won’t allow it.
In a speech at M. I. T. last November, he grumbled that the biggest problem in American education was stupid teachers. Well, okay, he wasn’t quite that blunt; but his meaning was
just as clear. He said we were culled “from the bottom 20 percent
[of our college classes] and not of the best schools.”
Bloomberg did go to Johns Hopkins University, a prestigious
school. He did make $22 billion in business. That means we have to listen to him because he knows everything
about education. He just hasn’t spent a day in a classroom in his entire life.
So: how is Bloomberg doing, in his third term in office, after promising to make education
reform the signature of his elected career? He thinks teachers are the biggest
roadblock on the path to reform. But he might want to check statistics.
According to researchers at Johns Hopkins University (there’s irony for you), 15% of American parents let their sons
or daughters miss at least 10% of all school days and do it every year.
Hey, stupid math teachers! I know you came from the bottom
20% and went to crappy colleges and universities. But check my figures. (Give
me a second. I’m pretty dumb, too.) If a kid misses 18 days every year, grades
K-12, then won’t that mean he or she missed classes 234 times. If one year
equals...and we divide 234 by...um…doesn’t that mean, academically, these
students should be 1.3 years behind, and not because of you?
Raise your hands if you have telepathic powers, stupid
teachers. Anyone? You mean you can’t teach kids who don’t come to school?
WTF!! What’s wrong with you!
Well, let me humbly offer this idea. Maybe we could notify
Mayor Bloomberg. He’s a brilliant guy. He’ll get this. He’ll see the truth.
Someone tell him that the same study found 200,000 kids in the New York City Schools missed 10% or more of every school year.
For the love of god and learning, tell him, “Mayor, we need
better doctors in this city quick! We must be culling them from the bottom 20%,
and not from the best schools! There’s plague in Lower Manhattan! There’s a
smallpox epidemic in the Bronx!”
Come on stupid teachers. If U. S. kids finish 14th in reading, 17th in science, and 25th in math in the most recent international comparison (65 countries), we’ll, let’s face the Ugly Facts. We’re Dumb.
And We Suck.
Read ‘em and weep, numbskull educators. Look at international
rankings (left column) for 15-year-olds in reading! Aren’t you ashamed of
yourselves? It’s a travesty and you are all to blame:
READING (2010)
1. South Korea (Singapore)
2. Finland (Italy)
3. Canada (Australia)
4. New Zealand (Switzerland)
5. Japan (Japan)
6. Australia (Israel)
7. Netherlands (Spain)
8. Belgium (Netherlands)
9. Norway (Sweden)
10. Estonia (Germany)
11. Switzerland (Cyprus)
12. Poland (Austria)
13. Iceland (France)
14. UNITED STATES (Canada)
15. Sweden (New Zealand)
16. Germany (Greece)
17. Ireland (Hong Kong)
18. France (Norway)
19. Denmark (Ireland)
20. United Kingdom (Belgium)
NOW LOOK AT THE SECOND COLUMN. Be sure you have your hankie
handy, because if America’s schools suck, our primary care offices and
hospitals must be an abomination. According to Bloomberg News. Yep. Bloomberg Bleepin’ News. According to Bloomberg’s own publication, we don’t come
anywhere close to the Top 20 when we rank the “The World’s Healthiest Countries.”
Doctors in Singapore are crushing our medical professionals.
Our medical guys can’t even beat Cyprus! Check the full list. America’s health
care system comes in on a stretcher, in 33rd place. We get beat by Cuba. We get beat by
Slovenia. We get beat by Kuwait!!!
(Then again, it could be worse. We could live in Swaziland,
which finishes dead last, 145th in international rankings.)
So: there you have it. We use another simple list to
“prove” another simple point. If U.S. students stink up rankings—and the only
explanation is that teachers are to blame—at least we’re not pathetic losers
like cardiologists and oncologists and transplant floor nurses.
And if you’re ready for more bad news, let’s face another set
of Ugly Facts: In an annual report, titled “F as in Fat,” state rankings for adult obesity were released today. Where
do we find the worst dietitians?
Mississippi, where the obesity rate is 34.9%.
I’m just a dumb, retired teacher; but if you ask me, it looks
like we need Congress to act and pronto. Let’s shape up lousy, lazy medical
people. It’s time for Congress to pass a law and call it No Fat American Left
Behind.
(Maybe No Fat American Behind Left Behind?)
If we’re going to criticize teachers based on simplistic
comparisons, let’s not forget all the dumb people clogging up the U. S. health
care system.
 |
What the heck? What's wrong with America's doctors and nurses? (I'm joking, of course.) Could it be that Mr. Bloomberg is an idiot? |
