SOME RICHLY DESERVED SARCASM

Dear Superintendent of Schools,

I've been meaning for some considerable time now, to write to various individuals in your line of work and thank them—sincerely and profusely—for taking yet another bold step in the direction of saving the children of this country from the vile scourge of public education. I refer, of course, to the sinister case of the little girl you punished—and rightly so—because she gave her best friend a gift, a little bag of dirt and leaves she collected surreptitiously from the school playground. This sort of dangerous behavior simply can't be tolerated. How many lives do you suppose you've saved through your actions?

It's been so long now, I can't recall how this noble crusade began. Was it, perhaps, with the little boy who kissed a female classmate on the cheek and got punished as if he'd committed rape? You certainly knocked him off the crooked path to anything resembling heterosexuality. I say, let that be a lesson to him.

Or maybe it was the little girl whom you treated like a drug pusher, because she offered an aspirin to a friend who needed it? Or the one who brought a deadly butter knife to school to eat her lunch with? I just don't remember, there have been so many monumental achievements over the past nine or ten years in the name of "Zero Tolerance".

I recall some young miscreant you dealt with as if he'd been one of the shooters at Columbine High School, because he had one of the minuscule plastic machineguns in his pocket that came with his G.I. Joe. Also, I seem to remember half a dozen kids—mostly boys, of course—who drew pictures of guns or knives and were severely punished for it. And another who chewed his sandwich into the shape of a gun and "shot" his playmate with it. You have even taken measures against kids who simply pointed their right index finger and said, "Bang!"

Naturally, it's important to take action against atrocities like these. Confiscate these deadly fingers and turn those nasty boys into little girls as quickly and thoroughly as possible. If administrative punishment won't do the job, and involuntarily drugging the children fails, as well, then perhaps it's time to look seriously at corrective surgery. Have there been any studies on the effects of castration, versus the simple, straightforward prefrontal lobotomies so popular a century ago? This is an era in which cost-effectiveness is all important, lest we run out of money to bomb all those widows and orphans in the Third World.

Not that you haven't built on a firm foundation provided by your predecessors. American parents, survivors of public school themselves, have been rendered so ignorant and stupid by the experience—twelve years of relentless brainwashing—that they willingly voted for two of the worst presidential candidates ever shamelessly foisted on the electorate, and still believe there's a meaningful difference between them. I'm sure that even greater things await this generation. While it's undeniably true that you can't teach children responsibility by denying them every opportunity to exercise it, who wants responsible individuals in the welfare-warfare nanny state being built around them?

But forgive me, I have digressed. What I really wanted to thank you for was bringing us that much closer—through your policy of Zero Tolerance for freedom, dignity, independence, and common sense—to the day when children everywhere will refuse to be dragged off to the day-prisons that you run, and parents refuse to make them. Shortly afterward, the public school system will be abolished, its buildings razed to the ground so that not one stone is left standing on another, and salt is sown on the ruins.

Meanwhile, you and your hundreds of thousands (or is it millions) of colleagues will be free at last to fulfill yourselves in the vocation that suits you best, in security, groping people at the airport. It is something to look forward to, and you are helping to make it happen. I can only stand in admiration and say, "More power to you and yours!"


Source






WHO NEEDS AUDITORS? TRUST US!

Even though it is about the most spendthrift (and least effective) education system in the country

The D.C. public school system has left vacant many key positions in the 13-employee internal watchdog office that scrutinizes how it spends and manages an annual budget of more than $1 billion, financial records show. The school system's office of compliance last year received funding for 10 auditor jobs. But pay records show that at one point the system had left nine of the auditor positions unfilled, but employed two directors and a management analyst.

John M. Cashmon, director for the compliance office, said hiring has soared since last year. As of last week, he said, only two of the office's auditor positions remained unfilled. "It has not been a quick process," he said, citing a lag in budget approvals and personnel descriptions last year. Although several auditors have been hired since last fall, Mr. Cashmon said, the compliance office has had trouble finding candidates to scrutinize city school system financial records. "There is a definite shortage of auditors," he said. "We're also fairly picky when we're selecting our staff. We're looking for good, qualified staff."

School system pay records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act show the system's compliance office has been depleted over the past year. The school system's Schedule A pay records compiled in January show six auditor vacancies out of nine funded positions in the compliance office. In April 2004, the school system listed as vacant nine out of the 10 auditor positions. The Schedule A document, which is hundreds of pages long, includes a detailed list of all funded positions, compensation levels and vacancies. It is given to the Board of Education and to the D.C. Council.

Mr. Cashmon called the document "a snapshot in time." "That is put together at a point in time, and we've advanced long past that point in time," he said. "We're progressing."

The D.C. inspector general and the office of the D.C. auditor have made numerous inquiries into the school system's contracting practices and finances. D.C. Public Schools Superintendent Clifford B. Janey recently told the D.C. Council Committee on Education, Libraries and Recreation that the ongoing inquiries have put a strain on administrators trying to comply with auditor's demands for documents...

Mr. Cashmon said budget issues have kept his office from becoming fully staffed over the past year. He said full staffing had to wait while school system officials obtained budget authority and hiring approval. "We went through some growing pains a year ago ... but I'm happy we're just about completely there," he said. The compliance office is an internal audit division under the school system's office of the chief operating officer. The office of the D.C. auditor and the office of the inspector general are independent...

In recent years, the compliance office has investigated the misuse of credit cards by school employees and the misspending of school activity funds by administrators.

More here

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

The NEA and similar unions worldwide believe that children should be thoroughly indoctrinated with Green/Left, feminist/homosexual ideology but the "3 R's" are something that kids should just be allowed to "discover"

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