How the gov't shutdown can save America

What’s wrong with America these days? Ask anyone, and they’ll tell you that (other than greed, corruption, immorality, arrogance, partisanship, etc.) it is the education system. The education mantra of “ignore the brightest, praise the mediocre, and teach the weakest” produces useless graduates with a mixed up sense of self worth. At least in earlier days, by the time the weak students finished school (I won’t say graduated) they knew enough to set their sights low for the future.

This happens because teachers fear failures. On every test there is enough extra credit to ensure that the lowest possible mark is 100%. By definition 100% means perfect, but if you set the bar low enough for perfect then everyone can get there.

Fortunately, I have the solution. The US government is shut down, and 800,000 federal workers are sitting home doing nothing (as opposed to sitting in an office doing nothing) for the past 3 weeks. If there is one thing government workers excel at, it is failure (or at least, they certainly do not fear it). That number of workers is approximately 25% of the number of public school teachers (for you Americans, don’t worry about the advanced math involved there). Put 800,000 teachers on furlough and give their jobs to the federal employees. The hours are about right (10am to 3pm, with a couple of 1-2 hour breaks in the middle) so its a perfect fit. Then watch as failures make a comeback and the new perfect mark becomes 80%. Any smart kids will be pulled out of school by government talent agencies like the CIA, ensuring that no one is left to crack that 80% barrier. The rest of the schools can continue to be staffed with current teachers and we can compare results in 20 years to show that I was right. Oid yenuvun besaiva, dshaynim vrannanim yihyu.

No one can call me a kofui toiv.