Teachers on Steroids!

I'm a little jealous of Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds.  Cameras follow these guys wherever they go.  Government agencies want to hear from them.  Congress holds hearings.  But teachers can't even get local school boards to listen.

I keep wondering what it's going to take.  This week, 250 teachers (more than half) in my school district showed up at a board meeting - asking for a little attention.  It seems as though they were all fed up about the same things... low pay, low morale, low respect.  The crowd cheered support for speaker after speaker.

Official Board Response... A couple of smirks. 

Clemens has been the recipient of moral outrage and righteous indignation.  Congresspeople were tripping over each other trying to ask the next question.  The media is having a field day.   Don't get me wrong here, but Clemens is just a baseball player.  It's not like the future of our children is depending on anything that might have happened in those hearings.  Why aren't people all up in arms about the state of education?

Desperate times deserve desperate measures.  So, it's time for me to make some startling revelations about what goes on in our schools.

Teachers are using performance-enhancing drugs.  That's right, after numerous interviews from multiple sources, it's time to leak this story -- Teachers are on steroids.

A veteran teacher, who only spoke on the condition of anonymity, said, "The pressure is too high.  We face impossible test score expectations.  They're threatening to shut our school down."

Said another, "Those No-Child-Left-Behind expectations - every student above average - this isn't Lake Wobegon!"  

Yet another teacher who was interviewed for my story talked about the pressure of paying bills.  "I have to work two jobs just to pay the mortgage and health care.  I turned to steroids because I have no time to sleep."

These revelations bring every AYP and API ranking in the entire country under scrutiny.  It's unclear who is supplying our schools with steroids, though one teacher speculated that educational consultants who wander from school district to school district with their power-point staff-training presentations might be the source.  It's unclear the role that superintendents are playing in this, but it seems as though they have been knowingly looking the other way, hoping that those test scores would get the boost.

To do the important research for this story, I had to guarantee my sources that I would never release their names.  Subpoena me if you feel you must, but I will remain true to my word.  

Anyway, Bring on the cameras.  Schedule the hearings.  Call up the talk radio people.

Maybe our school board will pay attention to us now.