Friday, June 11, 2010

The Sun Also Rises

New York Times said the other day that due to greater pressure on teachers to increase scores on standardized tests, there has been a rise in cheating. Really? Who could have anticipated that if you tie a person's livelihood to a single score on a test taken by an 8 year old that it would increase cheating?

Frankly, I think BloomKlein and the state of NY would be happy if more teachers helped their students cheat on standardized tests. They can hardly dumb down the tests any further or fetuses will be able to pass them by banging out the correct answers on uterine walls. No, clearly the only way to keep scores on the upswing in the future is to allow, or even encourage, cheating.

In related obvious news, Mayor Bloomberg stuck up for not one, but two, of his billionaire buddies. First, Mayor4Life defended BP CEO Tony Hayward in the wake of the BP oil spill disaster, because he "...didn't exactly go down there and blow up the well." Of course, teachers didn't exactly raise the students whose scores we are responsible for, but that's beside the point. M4L also defended the ultra rich Malkin family, the owners of the Empire State Building, for refusing to use the landmark's lights to honor the 100th birthday of Mother Theresa.

So, to recap, in Bloomberg's world, it's wrong to villify a villain, and equally wrong to honor a saint.

Isn't it obvious?

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