“The educational paradigm has shifted from guaranteeing universal access to guaranteeing universal performance.” -‘Puter’s Tiny Local School District 2013-14 Budget Presentation PowerPoint**

If the old saw is true — that a gaffe is when a government official accidentally speaks an inconvenient truth — then this is a gaffe for the ages.

Par for the course in today’s educational environment: Precious Q. Snowflakes run the show.  YOLO, indeed.

And what a telling gaffe it is.  The crux of everything that is wrong with our public education system, neatly encapsulated in one concise statement of fact. 

This is why your kids stink at math. This is why your competitive kids hate school. This is why good teachers are fleeing the profession at an alarming rate. This is why ‘Puter has a hard time finding qualified American college graduates to staff his business. This is why we’ve been blessed with a generation of Precious Q. Snowflakes, coddled by an “educational paradigm” (and doting parents) that ignores reality.

And to be fair, I think PTLSD’s statement is simply that: an acknowledgement of reality. ‘Puter knows plenty of PTLSD administrators, teachers, parents and students who loathe the dumbed down, “everybody gets a trophy” educational paradigm, but they can’t do anything about it.

‘Puter could rail (and has railed) the gross stupidity behind NY’s school budgeting. But PTLSD, like many in New York, is feeling the crunch of declining enrollment, increased unfunded mandates, decreased state and federal funding and a property tax cap. And that’s before we even consider this year’s state mandated 37.2% jump (16.25% of all teachers’ salaries) in contributions to the NYS teachers’ pension fund. PTLSD now spends as much on employee benefits (pension, health insurance) as it does on teachers’ actual salaries. But the profligate spending is not the most troubling thing.

The most troubling thing is that we’ve ceased being a country where we mutually support everyone getting a fair spot at the starting line and have become a country where we guarantee an equal finish to everyone. Regardless of ability. Regardless of effort.

And that should scare the Hell out of everyone.

*Adapted from a post ‘Puter wrote under his alter ego’s identity on Facebook. Since Czar has an irrational fear of Mark Zuckerberg, ‘Puter’s cross-posting here. 

**This is an actual quote.  ‘Puter only changed the school’s name to protect the congenitally stupid administrator who thought it’d be a good idea to tell the truth.

'Puter

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.