‘Puter gives teachers’ unions an awfully hard time in these here intarwebs, and deservedly so. But until now, he’s avoided calling out teachers directly. Well, here goes.
‘Puter’s decided, on the basis of direct observation and recent experience that teachers, as a group, are not as bright as the ones he had growing up.* And guess what? Actual facts back up ‘Puter’s hypothesis! ‘Puter knows. Crazy, huh? One of his hare-brained wild-ass suppositions is actually correct and verifiably so.
Before we get started, let ‘Puter offers his bona fides on teachers generally. ‘Puter loves teachers, some quite literally. Mrs. ‘Puter is a hard science teacher. ‘Puter’s grandmother was an el-ed teacher. ‘Puter’s great-great grandfather, a Confederate veteran, ran a boarding school for young men in Alexandria, VA. Various of his aunts, cousins and friends are educators. A wild-eyed hater of teachers ‘Puter is not. So shut up and continue reading.
Here’s ‘Puter’s anecdotal and scientific bases for his hypothesis (i.e., teachers as a group are not nearly as smart as they used to be).
1. Direct observation the first. ‘Puter’s got two spawn of the XY variety. These spawn attend the local Peoples’ Social Training and (Re)Education Camp No. 57. As such, ‘Puter interacts with teachers frequently, as he is called in to discuss why ‘Puter, Jr. set his desk on fire again. Each teacher with whom ‘Puter has dealt has been a wonderful person. Thoughtful, nice, (mostly) professional. However, precious few would ‘Puter consider to be exceptionally bright. ‘Puter simply chalked this up to selection bias. That is, elementary education attracts people who want to save the world, and just love children. One does not have to be exceptionally bright, or have a vast knowledge to go toe to toe intellectually with seven year olds.
2. Direct observation the second. ‘Puter had jury duty this past week, as you may have read below. In the course of voir dire, a panel of 21 potential jurors were seated in the jury box. The attorneys, defense and prosecution, commenced questioning. One of the jurors was a young (mid to late 20s) attractive blonde woman, with a girlish voice and demeanor. Turns out this juror teaches third grade. At one point, the judge asked the panel whether there was any reason any member believed he could not fairly decide the matter at hand. The young teacher raised her hand, and with tears in her eyes, said she just couldn’t live with herself if she had to judge another human being. Really. A grown woman, with a job, in charge of educating your children admits she’s completely unprepared to fulfill the duties of an American citizen. Sad.
3. Scientific evidence the first. ‘Puter was reading along in Super Freakonomics, by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, in the chapter delightfully titled How Is a Street Prostitute Like a Department-Store Santa? when he ran across this nugget on page 44:
In 1960, 40 percent of female teachers scored in the top quintile of IQ and other aptitude tests, with only 8 percent in the bottom. Twenty years later, fewer than half as many were in the top quintile, with more than twice as many in the bottom.
Messrs. Levitt and Dubner attribute the drop to more and varied career opportunities for intelligent women. ‘Puter doesn’t doubt their conclusion at all. ‘Puter wonders simply whether the trend accelerated after 1980. Based on ‘Puter’s observations, it appears it has.
‘Puter believes education is an important profession. The problem is, thanks to unions, we cannot reward teachers based on their merit, thereby paying good teachers their true worth. Fixing the pay scale would likely lure some of the high performing women back to the profession. As Mrs. ‘Puter has found, education can be an exceptionally rewarding career, and one that fits nicely with child rearing (her own, not others). Unfortunately, as a hard science teacher, she makes the same as el-ed and phys ed teachers, despite the obvious premium her education and skills should command. Fix the disparities inherent in the reward/punishment structure enforced by unions, and many of education’s failures would sort themselves out.
*Before hordes of teachers, spouses of teachers, siblings of teachers, parents of teachers, teachers’ unions, teachers’ colleges, and even Edward Teach start dashing off hate-filled missives, ‘Puter said “as a group.” As in “not every teacher is a complete mouth-breathing idiot.” Some are, and more than there used to be. If you are uncertain as to which group you or your loved one belongs, you are probably in the mouth breathing group.
Always right, unless he isn’t, the infallible Ghettoputer F. X. Gormogons claims to be an in-law of the Volgi, although no one really believes this.
’Puter carefully follows economic and financial trends, legal affairs, and serves as the Gormogons’ financial and legal advisor. He successfully defended us against a lawsuit from a liquor distributor worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid deliveries of bootleg shandies.
The Geep has an IQ so high it is untestable and attempts to measure it have resulted in dangerously unstable results as well as injuries to researchers. Coincidentally, he publishes intelligence tests as a side gig.
His sarcasm is so highly developed it borders on the psychic, and he is often able to insult a person even before meeting them. ’Puter enjoys hunting small game with 000 slugs and punt guns, correcting homilies in real time at Mass, and undermining unions. ’Puter likes to wear a hockey mask and carry an axe into public campgrounds, where he bursts into people’s tents and screams. As you might expect, he has been shot several times but remains completely undeterred.
He assures us that his obsessive fawning over news stories involving women teachers sleeping with young students is not Freudian in any way, although he admits something similar once happened to him. Uniquely, ’Puter is unable to speak, read, or write Russian, but he is able to sing it fluently.
Geep joined the order in the mid-1980s. He arrived at the Castle door with dozens of steamer trunks and an inarticulate hissing creature of astonishingly low intelligence he calls “Sleestak.” Ghettoputer appears to make his wishes known to Sleestak, although no one is sure whether this is the result of complex sign language, expert body posture reading, or simply beating Sleestak with a rubber mallet.
‘Puter suggests the Czar suck it.
‘Puter gives teachers’ unions an awfully hard time in these here intarwebs, and deservedly so. But until now, he’s avoided calling out teachers directly. Well, here goes.