However surprising the Massachusetts test results may have been to some people, what should be even more revealing is that this was the first time such a test had been used to screen applicants for jobs as teachers in that state. In other words, these incompetents would have sailed right through in previous years and spent a lifetime in Massachusetts classrooms, spreading their ignorance and confusion to children. In many other states, tests for teachers have existed longer than in Massachusetts but often these tests are so easy to pass that they are meaningless. The political clout of teachers' unions ensures that these tests will remain easy. The neglect of hard knowledge and the failure to develop intellectual qualities in students is just part of the high price of allowing shallow people to set the norms in our public schools.
Dumbness is dangerous.
And tenured dumbness is doubly dangerous.