The worst excesses of self-preservation

It’s hard to know where to begin with this one. Today’s New York Daily News reports that a teacher, ironically named Wayne Brightly, gave a formerly homeless man $2 and a strong dose of intimidation to take the state teachers’ exam after Brightly had failed the test numerous times. Only after the stand-in, who has Asperger’s syndrome, scored very highly did officials become suspicious of the discrepancy.

Although no teacher or student will speak in Brightly’s defense, who else but the teachers’ union steps forward to claim that the school board has insufficient safeguards in place to prevent such teachers from obtaining certification by fraud. The union’s answer? Let Brightly keep his job. Outside the dystopia of the monopolistic public education “system” and an environment where empty credentialism thrives in anti-competitive unions, such a teacher would be rightly handed his sorry ass.