Teachers Union Blames Low Scores on Dumb Students

WASHINGTON (TheSkunk.org) — A spokesperson for the National Education Association said the reason students are performing below par on national testing standards is because they are “really, really dumb.”

“I’m tired of our members taking the fall for our failing education system,” said James E. Lebow, Vice President of NEA, the largest teachers union in the country, “when it’s the dumb kids who are bringing test scores down with their collective underachievement in math, science, history, reading and writing.”

According to Lebow, an epidemic of stupidity has swept the nation’s school-age children, and his members lack the skills and training to deal with the problem. “It’s unfair to expect our teachers to be burdened with this crisis,” said Lebow, “when they’re already overwhelmed grading papers, designing lesson plans and scheduling vacations around their ever-decreasing summer break.”

Kyle Jenson, a seventh grade math teacher at Robert Frost Middle School in Des Moines, Iowa, agreed. “I can teach algebra until I’m blue in the face,” he explained, “but if there’s a kid in the back row who just doesn’t get it, he’s clearly an idiot. How does that have any connection with my ability to teach?”

Jenson said he feels “highly offended” when various media cite the abundance of dumb students in the country as a measure of his performance as an educator. “It’s a fact that stupid kids don’t answer questions on the tests correctly,” said Jenson. “Why should that be a reflection of whether or not I’m a good teacher?”

“Until we can win the war against stupidity in our children,” noted Lebow, “American schools will continue to underperform their international counterparts.”

Jenson shook his head and sighed. “It’s like we’re somehow expected to wave our magic wands and replace all that stupidness with knowledge,” he added. “They just don’t get it.”