Schools a success! Productivity is up!

by David Safier

Stop the presses, and stop bad mouthing public schools. Our graduates are so well trained, productivity just jumped almost 10%!

What's that? You say there's no direct connection between schooling and productivity? Then why was everyone trashing me and my fellow teachers in the 80s when productivity was down? If it was teachers' and schools' faults then, I claim the right to declare increased productivity a sign of educational success. The school critics can't have it one way and not the other.

I still remember . . . "Our high school graduates are so dumb, they have to dumb down the workplace for them."

(Setup) Our graduates are so dumb . . .

(Audience response) How dumb are they?

(Punchline) They're so dumb, McDonalds put pictures of hamburgers, fries and drinks on the cash registers because these kids can't do simple math!

(Laughter, applause)

Except that, the only dummies here are the clowns making that claim. It's a tribute to capitalistic ingenuity that they created business-specific cash registers so every order has its own button to press, and you get it right every time. Cash register training time: a matter of minutes. Mistakes: only when someone hits the wrong button. The system is efficient and effective with high school grads, and it would be equally efficient and effective with PhDs in math. It's not dumbing down the workplace. It's smartening up the workplace.

So hurray for schools, damn it! They're doing such a good job, productivity is soaring! And people keep coming up with these labor saving inventions, another tribute to the quality of our schools. As the saying goes, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.