United States Secretary of Education Rod Paige announces new Bush initiative: Some Children Will Be Left Behind

In a move that surprised no one, Secretary of Education Rod Paige announced today that some students are just, in the Secretary's own words, "Too damned dumb not to be left behind." While many experts have been wondering for weeks when this policy would officially be announced, the timing itself, coinciding as it does with National Garbageperson's Day, surprised even the most hardened Beltway insider. According to Secretary Paige, "Test scores have dropped, shoelaces have been replaced with velcro and paint eating and glue sniffing has gone way, way up. The increases in underage pregnancy, murder and truancy has increased so fast that the Administration had to go out and buy a new chart. And you guys know how big our charts are."

The President, Vice President, First Lady, Former Presidents Carter, Ford, Bush and Clinton weren't available for comment, though most experts weren't surprised by this lack of communication, since all of them, according to one anonymous source, "graduated from high school, and think they are too good to talk about this issue." President Nixon and Reagan were also not available for comment, since they are both dead, even if most of America's school children have yet to figure this out. "Some of the textbooks in many of America's classrooms still show that Roosevelt is president, which wouldn't be so bad, if it wasn't Teddy Roosevelt I was talking about," said one frustrated administator. "Because of our lack of proper textbooks, kids aren't able to tell you much about American History, except maybe who the Teddy Bear is named after," he continued.

So what's next? Secretary Paige didn't elaborate. However the Secretary of the Army informed reporters that they were always looking for a few young men and women. And, best of all, he added "All of those tricky letters and numbers aren't needed."