Great Moments in Public Education

For all the great teachers out there, please don’t think we are picking on you. But we just couldn’t pass up this from today's opinion Journal - Great Moments in Public Education. Read the whole article, the story it's beyond belief.

"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," New York's Daily News reports:

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. . . .

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.

The News notes that the test has a 95% pass rate, which makes the inaptly named Brightly's repeated flunking--and the school system's failure to fire him long ago for incompetence--all the more appalling.