Your tax dollars at work.

     Yesterday, I received a note from a listener who described an assignment that her 11th grade daughter at West Allis Central High School was given by her AP Government History teacher.  Question 39 of the assignment read as follows: "Let's say that Darth Cheney gets shot in the face and dies. (I'm only making a joke here, I wish Vice President Cheney a long, healthy retirement.)  How would President Bush go about getting a new vice president?"

    "Darth Cheney"?  "Shot in the face"?  "Only making a joke"?  "Wish him a long retirement"? Boy, what a sense of humor that particular teacher has.  I wonder if she also likes to hang out at the airport in her spare time and kid about having a bomb in her purse?

     I guess it shouldn't be surprising that some public school teachers would think something like this was clever.  What is surprising though is that a teacher would be so unprofessional as to include it in a written test!  If she's putting stuff like this in writing, you can only imagine the type of stuff she's actually saying to the students in class.

     For his part, Jeff Nelson, the Principal at West Allis Central confirmed to us that the question was phrased as described by the parent.  While he had no issue with the ultimate question ("how do you choose a new vice president if the sitting vice president dies"), he agreed that the language used by the teacher was inappropriate.

     You think?

     I can only imagine what would have happened had a student written an essay speculating about the process the school would use in filling a teaching vacancy in AP History if the current teacher "gets shot in the face and dies".  My guess is that school officials would have called the cops and the student would have been suspended. For some reason, I don't think including the phrase "only kidding" would have changed much.

     The principal told us that he will speak to the teacher about this.  That's fine - but perhaps he should give her a research assignment as well.

     For example, maybe she should have to write an essay about the ethical obligations of public school teachers when it comes to advancing their political beliefs in the classroom.  If that's too difficult for her, maybe she should write an essay about poor taste.