Department of Our Collapsing Collapsed Schools, Sunday Edition

Give a little read of this wonderful little op-ed, written by "a history teacher and political satirist in Sacramento, California", Mr. Mark W. Bradley. Note that it is published not on a U.S. site, but instead a New Zealand one. Here are some excerpts:

It's not as if I set out to lie to my students, mind you. It's just that the implications of our current Constitutional horror show are so frightening and abhorrent that I feel compelled to address them with trepidation, if at all.

How, for instance, am I to explain the single-minded dedication of King George the Usurper and his morally retarded courtiers to the proposition that all men (certainly not women) are created equal, but that the rich and powerful are more equal than the rest of us, and the voracious corporate leviathans that gobble us up like guppies are the most equal of all??

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And how, pray tell, can I hope to illuminate for their parents the unpleasant truth that when it comes to "No Child Left Behind," the Arrogant Airhead of Crawford is leading us along a path of deception first trod by the malevolent Pied Piper of Hamlin?

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As for those of us educators who wish to hold onto our careers well into the impending Age of Benightedness, prudence may well dictate a new modus operandi. Perhaps it would behoove us to bring our curriculum into closer alignment with whatever message is currently being beamed at the president "from beyond the stars." Aside from our integrity (a commodity of decidedly declining value in today's market), what have we got to lose?

Come to think of it, why shouldn't we let God back into the classroom? I mean, it's not as if all those nasty French ideas about "social contracts" and "rational thought" ever really caught on here in America anyway, so what's the big deal? If we cranky old Liberals would just stop all the grousing, quit fighting the inevitable, and get with the program, maybe we could all lock arms and march boldly forward into the brave new classroom of the future.

Satire? Hardly. I think Mr. Bradley means every single word of it.

And remember, people of Sacramento: He teaches your children history.