Not Funny

This "satire" about the Atlanta Teacher Aptitude Test falls flat on its face. Only a non-teacher or a teacher who has never had his or her career ruined by administrators would find ANY kind of humor in this sick piece.

The author apparently doesn't understand that teachers have virtually no control over their working conditions. Administrators can and do destroy teachers' careers if they don't comply with "directives," even those that are blatantly illegal or unethical.

This was one of the big tragedies in the Atlanta teaching scandal. The teachers were damned if they did, and they were damned if they didn't. In the end it is the fault of politicians ignorant of teaching and learning who decided they were going to scapegoat the teaching profession by putting obscene amounts of testing on children, when standardized tests don't prove one goddamned thing.

Coming from the teacher-trashing New York Times, such idiotic "satire" shouldn't surprise me.