Spelling Bee Judge Can't Spell

Parents Protest Child's Spelling Bee Loss

Ordinarily the first thing that comes into my mind when I see headlines like this is that there's some crazy parent out there who can't deal with the fact that their child isn't the next Einstein.

That's not the case here, however. It turns out the young lady correctly spelled the word she was given, but the judge incorrectly said she didn't. This is the sorry state our education system is in today.

Over and over again, we hear how important the teaching profession is and how teachers are heroes, etc., etc. And for good teachers, that's all true. I had some great teachers to whom I'm very thankful.

But I also had some lousy ones, and so has everyone else. The teaching profession has lots of lousy teachers who can't pass the very same proficiency tests they're supposed to be giving our children, but the NEA - the national teacher's union - won't admit to there being even one bad apple in the bunch.

In this case, I fully support the parents of this young lady. Not because the spelling bee is such a huge deal, but because this school district won't admit that they screwed up and the teacher was an incompetent who had no business judging spelling skills.

If the school district would stand up and say this person doesn't belong in front of students because they lack even basic spelling skills and we're going to remove them from the classroom until he/she can learn them, then I would say a lawsuit would be going overboard. I would even settle for: hey we screwed up big time, but they won't even admit they did. Instead they want to stand on a technicality that the protest wasn't immediately lodged: though I'm sure they never told anyone ahead of time that those were the rules.

The school district's tactic is to vilify the parents by implying that they're wasting precious dollars pursuing a lawsuit. Hey morons, if you'd admit you screwed up no one would be filing a lawsuit, so who's the one wasting the money? You are...

These are the cowards and fools in charge of teaching our children. Am I scared about the future? You bet...