The Weekly Screed (#597)

Mrs. Ducklow’s race to the bottom
by David Benjamin

BROOKLYN — The Skid Row Detention Center was a festering boil on the Big City’s stinkiest back street, an area where no respectable citizen, much less an unaccompanied elderly woman, dared venture. So, when Officer Murphy, clerk of the Bail Office, looked up and saw her — in a flower-print dress, sensible shoes, wire-rimmed glasses, and a little straw hat adorned with silk flowers, he was dumbfounded.

Clutching her handbag, she stood benignly in the waiting line, wedged between a sadomasochist hooker and a kneebreaker for the Russian mob. Murphy recognized her.

“Mrs. Ducklow? Is that you, Mrs. Ducklow?” he cried out.

The gray-haired lady peered over her spectacles, as Murphy lifted his bullet-proof shield. She said, “My stars! It can’t be! Little Patrick Murphy, from freshman English?”

As it turned out, Officer Murphy, ten years before, had been one of Mrs. Ducklow’s pupils at Harry Truman High. He called her over to the bail counter and enjoyed one of those touching reunions that are inspired by lovingly remembered teachers.

Then, Murphy said, “Mrs. D, this is a scary neighborhood! Why are you here?”

She smiled bashfully. “Well, it’s one of my students. I’m here to bail him out.”

Murphy was shocked. Skid Row Detention was reserved for the most incorrigible criminals in the Big City, the crusty slime that accumulates on the scum of the earth.

“Really?” he said. “But who could that be?”


“His name.” said Mrs. Ducklow, “is Percival Plissken.”

For a moment, Murphy was puzzled. Then it dawned. “Perciv — You mean Snake? You’re here to bail out Snake Plissken?”

“Yes, his nickname is ‘Snake,’ isn’t it? Can I write a personal check?”

“No, no, no! Wait. You can’t do this, Mrs, Ducklow! Not Snake Plissken. I mean, he’s the worst — My God! Do you know what he’s in for?”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Ducklow, shaking her head sadly. “I believe he held up a little girl selling lemonade in her driveway, under a maple tree.”

“And pistol-whipped her!” added Murphy. “With a sawed-off shotgun!”

“Yes, I understand,” said Mrs. Ducklow.

“And then! Her mother ran out of the house! And he threatened to blow the little girl’s brains out unless her mother exposed her, um… ”

“Breasts,” said Mrs. Ducklow. “Yes, I know.”

“And then!” exclaimed Murphy. “Do you know what that filthy pig DID to the little girl’s mother? With the barrel of his shotgun?”

“Yes, I know what Percival did, and I certainly can’t condone it,” said Mrs. Ducklow. “But I have to get him back into school today.”

“But why?” said Murphy. “The vicious bastard is 28 years old. He only goes to school to sell drugs. He can’t add two plus two! He’ll never graduate!”

“Yes, I know. But if I don’t round the poor boy up, well, I could lose my job.”

Murphy couldn’t believe his ears. But Mrs. Ducklow explained that the School Dept. had adopted management principles espoused by education reformers like Bill Gates and Steven Brill. The result was a teacher evaluation system based on student scores on the famous George Bush/Arne Duncan No-Child-Left-Behind/Race-to-the-Top All-or-Nothing Standardized Basic Reading Skills Exam. “Right now, the scores of all my pupils average out to 59.9. If I can’t get that number over 60, I’m on the street,” said Mrs. Ducklow. “Snake Plissken is my last chance. He has a make-up test today.”

“But Mrs. Ducklow,” said Murphy. “Snake is a degenerate moron with the brains of a fungus. That test is calibrated at the third-grade reading level. He’ll never pass!”

“Oh, but I’ve been tutoring him,” said Mrs. Ducklow. “He’s really doing quite well. I have high hopes.”


Murphy was amazed. “Tutoring? Snake Plissken? How did you convince him — ”

“Well,” Mrs. Ducklow blushed. “Before every lesson, he insists that I show him my, um…”

“Breasts?”

Mrs. Ducklow blushed again.

“This is what we’ve sunk to?” said Murphy. “To retain the most experienced, most dedicated teachers in our most challenging public schools, we don’t raise their pay to equality with other educated professionals. We don’t give them the resources they need, or make any effort to correct the underlying causes of poor student performance. We do nothing to alter the “separate-and-unequal” property-based funding system for public schools. Instead, we bet our kids’ future and the jobs of our educators on a high-stakes, once-a-year, one-size-fits-all multiple-choice test, and we place our finest teachers at the mercy of their worst, stupidest, laziest, least motivated students?”

“Yes,” said Mrs. D, smiling, “that’s about the size of it. Now, about that check?”

Reluctantly, Murphy accepted payment. A moment later, Snake Plissken stood in the vestibule, towering over Mrs. Ducklow, buckling his ammo belt and adjusting his eye-patch. Mrs. Ducklow asked him if he was ready for his big reading test.

“Nope. No test for me, babe,” said Snake. “Not even if you flash your boobs.”

Murphy and Mrs. Ducklow were startled.

“Y’see, I met this guy in my cell,” Snake explained. “And he told me about these schools where they got their test scores up by cheating. And I go, whoa! Cheating? I can do that. If that’s the game, hey! I’m way better than Mrs. Ducklow — or any teacher. So if you get fired, Mrs. D, the school gets worse, right? Straight down the toilet! But they still gotta have those test scores, right? So, they’re gonna need a few guys like me, who know how to mark the deck and deal from the bottom, y’know?”

“You?! You’re applying for a teaching job?” asked Mrs. Ducklow, astounded.

“Why not? Right now, as a degenerate moron, I get no respect,” said Snake, making a bee-line for the School Department. “How much worse could teaching be?”

Mrs. Ducklow sighed and watched her career go out the door. “Lots,” she said.