New Mexico Mercury

New Mexico Education Secretary designate Hannah Skandera is the only education secretary in our state’s history not to be confirmed by the state legislature.

Skandera created a grading system for public schools that will be used to evaluate teacher performance. The scheme is so complex and whimsical that no one can follow it. Teachers will be assigned numbers earned by their schools, students they don’t teach or even know, and their very own students, all bestowed numerical equivalencies on the basis of student performance during state-wide standardized tests invented by Skandera’s cat, ArfnArf.

The Education Dept. announced this Monday that Skandera is being returned to third grade for remedial reading, arithmetic classes, and basic socialization. Skandera, who can’t pass her own third grade tests, was asked what two plus two is.

The Secretary designate responded, “I don’t care what anyone says, I know it’s five. I know it in my heart.” Some legislators, teachers, and school administrators have challenged Skandera’s educational expertise. Supporters noted Hannah worked for five minutes picking up near-empty milk cartons and Mars bar wrappers in an unnamed Florida school cafeteria six years back.

Corporate folks really like Skandera’s emphasis on hard data, even though it’s not supported by facts that just get in the way of understanding what education is all about.

Skandera’s dream is to one day invent one single number, sort of like God, that can be used to measure the potential and accomplishment of every kid. This figure will somewhat resemble Wilhelm Reich’s orgone box into which each child must be placed for measurement, squeezing, molding, and evaluation that will determine his or her entire future.

One day, she hopes and prays, based on the raw scores of a thousand substandard children, all the teachers in New Mexico will be evaluated. Some will retain their pay. Others will do their jobs for free to remove their deficiencies, and still others will be drawn and quartered.