The Idiot-Teacher Of The Year Award

by John Hawkins | March 24, 2005 11:59 pm

This is funny stuff[1]:

“A Bronx teacher who repeatedly flunked his state certification exam paid a formerly homeless man with a developmental disorder $2 to take the test for him, authorities said yesterday.

The illegal stand-in – who looks nothing like teacher Wayne Brightly – not only passed the high-stakes test, he scored so much better than the teacher had previously that the state knew something was wrong, officials said.

…”I was pressured into it. He threatened me,” the bogus test-taker Rubin Leitner told the Daily News yesterday after Special Schools Investigator Richard Condon revealed the scam.”

…Brightly has been charged with coercion, falsifying business records and other crimes. He has been taken out of his Baychester classroom pending the outcome of the case.

Now here’s the real punchline in the “idiot teacher of year” story:

“Brightly, 38, a teacher at one of the city’s worst schools, Middle School 142, allegedly concocted the plot to swap identities with Leitner last summer. If he failed the state exam again, Brightly risked losing his $59,000-a-year job.”

Gee, ya think they could be one of “the city’s worst schools” because they’re paying incompetents like Brightly $59,000 a year to teach?

Here’s another question: do you think a private school that can only draw students by providing a first class education is going to be more or less likely to have a dope like Brightly on staff than a government run school?

Give parents the option of using school vouchers, which will open up more choices to them, and the sort of schools that hire guys like Wayne Brightly will either be replaced or will have to improve to keep up — and that would be a good thing.

Endnotes:
  1. funny stuff: http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/292646p-250502c.html

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