Bush Defends Education Legacy

The Associated Truth in Parody Press
For Release Right Away


As he prepares to leave office, President Bush responded patiently and without condescension today to reports of the growing and widspread consensus among the nation's 3.5 million incompetent teachers, the nation's most highly disregarded educational researchers and psychometricians, and growing masses of shallow citizens, that the "misuse" of standardized testing is catastrophically narrow-minded, inhumane, and counterproductive. Standing firm, however, the president stated that he doesn't give a hoot what people think.

For the first time in his eight years of presidenting, Mr. Bush was asked by a particularly obnoxious reporter what grade level is. The President gracefully rebuffed the irreverant and uncalled for remark by simply stating that it is where all children should be.

A particularly malicious line of questioning revolved around charges that the law has harmed most the very children it purports to serve, while lining the pockets of family, friends, and political cronies on both sides of the aisle.

Since when is it a crime for my brother Neil to help poor children
boost up their test scores with his innovative Cash On Wheels program, the COWS program? Since when is it a crime for my mom to rush aid to Hurricane Katrina's kids with Neil's product?

Since when is it a crime to help a family friend and buddy in need, Terry McGraw III, Business Roundtdable Chair and CEO of the McGraw-Hill Companies? He's making great profits with sound, innovative products that help all children get on grade level.

And by the way, since when is it a crime for me to reach across the
aisle to a Democrat, my friend and fellow Texan Sandy Kress, an engineer of this good law who just happens to have made a little money lobbying for testing companies? Those companies provide all sorts of innovative ways to pump up test scores. That's good for children and it's good for the recovery of the Global Economy.

NCLB Legislation for Corporate Fat Cats

I first proposed the following legislation in October, 2007, and it was virtually ignored by Congress. Can you believe it? And here I am, an important blogger and all, not to mention an actual teacher. I was dreadfully disappointed. It's a finely crafted bill, really!

Well, maybe Florida teachers will like it.

With a new administration soon to take the helm, now seems the perfect time to re-introduce it:

HB 2014:
No Corporate Fat Cat Left Behind

It is proposed that in keeping with the 99.9% pure, bright line principles of NCLB accountability and transparency, the nation's primary beneficiaries of NCLB and high-stakes testing be administered the newly-crafted, teacher-constructed F-CATT (Fat Cat Test). All items on the F-CATT have been designed to be able to detect disingenuous responses, deception and/or incompetence by measuring individual responses against results of the NAEP-E, National Assessment of Ethical Practices in Education, to arrive at the test-taker's UMI, or Ulterior Motives Index. Conservative estimates are that at least 90% of test-takers will fail to demonstrate AEP, Adequate Ethical Practices, in the arena of public education reform.

Sister assessments to the F-CATT are under construction for politicians as well as the leading members of a highly networked web of corporate-funded, anti-public education propaganda machines, also known as think tanks. It is anticipated that the POTTY, Politicians and Opportunists Tempted by Testing Yardstick, will be ready for administration by spring 2009. The T-TIA, Tinkle Tank Incontinence Assessment, is being developed to diagnose an irresistible urge to eliminate public education through ideology masquerading as educational research.

Test takers can relax since no sanctions will be imposed for failure to make AEP. The test results will be reward enough for our nation's besieged public schools.

Stephen Colbert - Not Enough Eyebrow Raising Sir!

I'm afraid our esteemed Secretary of Spin Margaret Spellings received only a gentle ribbing at best about the No Child Left Behind Act when she appeared yesterday on The Colbert Report. She made the usual dubious claims about the success of NCLB and blustered for the 9,999th time about "all children on grade level".

Don't ya wish lightning-quick-on-the-draw Colbert, catching her off balance, had fired something like this at her?

ARE WE THERE YET? ARE ALL OF AMERICA'S CHILDREN AVERAGE OR ABOVE?

As norm-referenced tests have given way to criterion-referenced tests, I suppose no one can really define "grade level" anymore. Even in the "norm-referenced days" when it was understood that by definition, nationally 50% of all students are always below grade level, it was an arbitrary thing.

But the absurdity stands, no matter the definition: No goal can be both challenging to all and achievable by all.