How ALEC Gets Real Tax Dollars for Fake Schools
A recent question on a standardized test in New York State seemed to set the bar for stupidity in education reform. Schoolchildren were asked to imagine a race between a talking pineapple and a rabbit and were asked why the spectators ate the pineapple and which animal was the wisest. The question was so indefensibly dumb that they agreed not to grade the answers, though not before a lot of confused complaints and embarrassed apologies.
But if think you the pineapple scandal is the dumbest thing going on in education these days, then you haven't been to Texas recently. We take second place to no one when it comes to stupid. At a time when we fund public schools by looking under the state's fiscal cushions for loose change, our politicians have figured out a way to send money we don't have to not educate our children at schools that don't exist. Top that, New York!
Like most bad ideas in American politics, this all started with the American Legislative Exchange