Don’t Worry, Onion. The Feds Have This Education Crisis Covered!

Today, crack Center for Educational Freedom research assistant Ian Hinsdale alerted me to an Onion News Network program on which panelists decried Americans' shocking ignorance about whales, a problem the experts agreed, for the most part, started in the schools. Toward the end of the segment one of the panelists spoke a little whale, but she hadn't learned it in her whale-studies deficient, inner-city K-12 schools. No, she had to learn it in adult school, illustrating how severely we've shortchanged so many of our students. And don't think for a minute that whale ignorance is confined to low-income schools...

Now, you might think this was a joke -- ONN does sometimes do a parody or two. But this segment could not have been more serious. How do I know? Because the federal government really does have a multi-million dollar, whale-based education initiative: The Historic Whaling and Trading Partners Exchange Program. And if the feds have a program for something the problem must be real, and it must be serious!

Ilwhaleracy, quite simply, threatens the future of our nation -- consider just the potential devastation on our economic competitiveness with Atlantis! -- and I for one am glad to see Washington tackling the threat head on!