Field Trips Declared Unconstitutional

Just sit right back and you�ll hear the tale, the tale of a fateful field trip � Wait! No you won�t. Today boys and girls we are going to take a trip across the education system in America. Can you spell �education?� no? That�s my point exactly. For those of us who�ve already learned our letters, things have changed quite a bit since those days, and not necessarily for the better.

Some of the thanks must go to our fearless leader, King George XLIII, and his groundbreaking, earth shattering education reform, �No Child Left Behind.� Unfortunately, it is not all his fault, because TV, the Internet, video games and general apathy are all contributing editors to this masterpiece.

NCLB is designed, one can only assume, not to leave childs behind. Its history is quite simple; too many teachers were getting doped up on field trips and leaving students there. Sometimes the teacher would just go home and leave all of the students at the museum or other educationally cultural venue. Disgruntled parents tried to sue the school and the teachers, but as a direct result of a revolutionary piece of paper called the permission slip / complete liability waiver / life insurance beneficiary designation form, the schools were untouchable. A group of concerned parents, obviously with nothing better to do, tried to channel the spirit of Elliot Ness. Unable to reach him, they tried to channel Elliot Spitzer. Realizing he was still alive, there was only one man left who could do the job. They called Robert Stack, who told them exactly what to do.

They sued God for allowing such negligence to exist in the field trip classroom. The suit also named God�s chief advisor on Earth, George 43rd, who is as holy as they come. George had infiltrated the church and put sleeper CIA agent Joseph Ratzinger in the papacy.

George drew on all his resources, including his mastery of the English Language to draft the legislation himself. From that day forward, he vowed to leave no children behind on them there field trip things. Now it was up to congress.

Unfortunately for the Legislature, when the bill got there, it was only one sentence long �Stop forgettin� them kids, you�re either for �em or again� �em.� So as congress tends to do, pointless amendments and riders were added to No Child Left Behind, some of them actually having to do with education.

The new law was hailed by all as the triumph of education reform, but it wasn�t long before a new problem had arisen. Bush had only allotted $27 for the new law, to cover the production of a couple bumper stickers, but it didn�t quite cover the amount the House and Senate had in mind. The problem got worse when it was realized Bush had blown all the money budgeted for education on new drapes for the White House and on playing with his toy soldiers in Iraq. But that didn�t worry old George, he signed the bill into law anyway, assuming a school bake sale would cover the funding gap. And that boys and girls is how King George, Oracle of God, changed the way we learn forever.

But our story doesn�t end here; in fact it�s only the beginning. Now the burden fell to the teachers and administrators. All students were now required to take a standardized test every year to measure the progress of the schools. Teachers were now required to divert time from an already over-crowded curriculum, in order to teach to the test, instead of doing that silly learning thing Congress had deemed as �overrated.� Even �Special Ed� and developmentally disabled children were required to take these tests.

In Utah, a very prestigious school with a long waiting list for admission was deemed �in need of improvement� because three learning disabled children were not able to pass the test. They were not alone, 11,000 other schools in the US were also needing improvement.

Other than diverting time from actual education to beat the system come test time, NCLB has good intentions; approximately in the same way the Joe McCarthy had good intentions with HUAAC. The under funding of NCLB is so extreme, 75% of the states in the union have challenged the programs authority. The largest teachers union in the country is suing the federal government to put its money where its mouth is. Utah has gone so far as to pass a state law circumventing NCLB, although it will most likely cost Utah its federal funding. It is a sign of good things to come when states challenge unreasonable demands, although that is what led to the Civil War.

Perhaps a return to Civil War time was the plan all along. Perhaps NCLB is under funded on purpose. After all, the ruling corporate aristocracy can�t get richer if the poor become educated. It is a curious coincidence that the schools that have the hardest time meeting federal requirements are poor inner-city schools with mainly black and other minority populations. So maybe the ruse is working perfectly and NCLB is doing exactly what it was deigned to do, maintain the American socio-economic caste system and negotiate bulk museum entrance rates for field trips.

If we look around, we see how ingenious this system is. For example, the staff of the Jack-in-the-Box in Baton Rogue, LA are all products of American education. Recently a young man wanted to buy a meal for himself and his friends. He paid with a $100 Federal Reserve Note (1974 series). Although a 1974 $100 bill does not look exactly like a 2005 $100 bill, most people with a high school education acknowledge it is legal American currency. The only logical assumption is the entire staff of Jack-in-the-Box did not go to high school. Instead of giving this man the food he ordered and paid for with American money, they called the police and tried to delay the customer until the cops arrived. As one could imagine, he was quite surprised when he was forcibly removed from his vehicle, handcuffed, and placed in the back of a police cruised. When he inquired of the officers what was happening, he was told to �shut up.� After some delay, the bill was tested with a counterfeit detector pen (why this wasn�t done in the first place is anyone�s guess) and the man was released, much to the joy of his friends, who will promptly ridicule him for the rest of his life.

The young man sued the fast food joint and the sheriff�s department, but the suit was dismissed as being without merit. An appellate court ruled in favor of the man citing, �Citizens should not be at risk for spending legal tender.� The sheriff�s department still contends it has the right to physically restrain and detain any individual using money deemed as suspicious by the highly trained cashiers making $5.15/hour. This includes: dollar coins (Sacagawea and Susan B.), wheat pennies, buffalo nickels, mercury dimes, bi-centennial quarters, Kennedy half-dollars, blue diamonds and purple horseshoes. God help you if you try to spend a Jefferson two-dollar bill. You might as well back your bags and book a one-way ticket to Guantanamo. So the moral of this story is don�t spend American money unless you want to end up in handcuffs. Unless of course you like being handcuffed, which is a different issue altogether.

The second example of high quality USA edumacation is from my hometown of Rochester, NY. A friend of mine was stopped at a red light when a teenager pulled up next to her. He got out of his car and walked up to her window. He handed her two triple spaced pieces of paper and informed her he had written this essay to graduate and asked if she would read it. She presented it to some of us to read. I was both entertained an appalled by what I read. The subject matter wasn�t important, but the spelling, grammar, and punctuation were on the elementary school level. I was actually impressed by this feat, given the world of F7 spelling and grammar check that we live in. This �academic� paper also contained a surprising number of expletives. Is this all it takes to graduate high school now? It makes me almost wish I had gone to high school instead of spending my teen years working on the family�s buffalo ranch in Oregon.

So there you have it boys and girls, education in America. Now you know why you are destined to work a thankless dead-end job for the rest of you life. You won�t be able to retire, because social security will be long gone by then. But that�s a story for another night.

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