Professor  Walter Williams treated this in his latest syndicated column, "Dishonest  Educators." He introduces the topic by talking about the fairly recent cheating  scandals in places such as Atlanta, Philadelphia, Houston, New York, Detroit,  and other large cities (in areas that, not coincidentally, also have high rates  of vote fraud and other criminality). These are shocking instances in which  teachers would commit transgressions such as reading answers aloud in class  during the National Assessment of Educational Progress test. How did they  justify this? Well, Williams quotes one teacher who told a fellow "educator," "I  had to give your kids, or your students, the answers because they're dumb as  hell."

But  it seems the kids aren't the only ones. Now we learn that some teachers in  Tennessee, Arkansas, and Mississippi paid surrogates between $1,500 and $3,000  to take the Praxis exam for them, the passing of which is necessary for teacher certification in 40 states. And how  challenging is this test that some would fork over a few grand to a ringer  sit-in? Williams describes a couple of representative questions,  writing:

Here's a practice Praxis I math question: Which of  the following is equal to a quarter-million -- 40,000, 250,000, 2,500,000,  1/4,000,000 or 4/1,000,000? The test taker is asked to click on the correct  answer. A practice writing skills question is to identify the error in the  following sentence: "The club members agreed that each would contribute ten days  of voluntary work annually each year at  the local hospital." The test taker is supposed to point out that "annually each  year" is redundant.

Forget  about the fact that adults would find such questions challenging; it's a sad  statement about our society that we'd set the bar for teacher certification so  low in the first place. I had to think: how young was I when I didn't know the  answers to the above two questions? Ten? Nine? Maybe even eight? Idiocracy has arrived.

Professor  Williams also touches on a third rail of American social commentary, mentioning  that most of the teachers hiring the surrogates are likely black -- and that  most of the surrogates may very well be white. Now, before anyone thinks of  "Summerizing" Williams (not as I have. Rather, this refers to application of the  kind of politically correct social pressure that drove Larry Summers from Harvard),  know that he is black himself. And his point in addressing race is that our leftist mis-educators' tolerance of  low-information black teachers puts the lie to their claim that they care about  blacks. After all, as he writes in his closing line, "If they [the teachers]  manage to get through the mockery of teacher certification, at what schools do  you think they will teach?"

But  never fear, Dr. Williams. I'm sure these molders of young minds are well versed  in afro-centrism, critical-race theory, and the principles of white  privilege