What Do You Mean You Couldn't Finish Your Homework Because You Had To Take Your Nap?

Well, it's about time we got some accountability into our educational system. It's been satisfied too long with turning out students like...well...us. We've long felt (since right after we were paroled from the educorporate training centers) that kids have been getting away with...um...being kids for too long. Time to grow up Billy and Betty and don't give me any of that happy face, Sesame Street, let's learn our numbers nonsense either. This is real school, punk.

Kindergartners in Mobile County's public schools may not yet know all of their ABC's, but now the students are required to receive actual letter grades in every subject almost weekly. "They were just enjoying themselves too much," school system officials said. "I mean you'd walk by those classrooms and there'd be reading circles and learning games and all sorts of things going on. That's not school. Heck, most of the kids weren't even in their seats."

Vivian Schultz, who has been teaching kindergarten for 24 years and has some concerns with the new grading policy. Schultz and some other kindergarten teachers have voiced frustration over the new requirements, pointing out that these same kids are just now learning to sit still during class and to tie their shoes.

"Right. Which is why we're grading it," responded Delbert Dingman, assistant superintendent for educational adultification, standardization and marginalization. "Lord knows kids won't do it if it's just fun. There has to be a grade attached so kids who aren't as good can learn that early on and start planning their career at Walmart."

Because teachers must often post the grades online, parents are able to keep up with how well their children are performing. "I know my kid pees his pants when he gets excited at home," said one parent. "Do I really need to know he does that in school too. And only gets a C- for it?"

Mobile County Public School System officials said they derived the new rules for grading kindergartners from the torture policy adopted by the Bush administration. "We just want kids to learn early on that life sucks and then you die," said one school board member. "Heck, my childhood was one big trauma. Why should theirs be any different."

Students now must take a test or receive some kind of other major grade almost weekly in five key subjects: reading, language, math, science and social studies. "It's pretty tough on the kids who can't read yet," said Dingman. "But that's what grades are supposed to show."