MY LATEST FROM THE COURIER TIMES

Posted: Thursday, February 12, 2015 5:23 am | Updated: 12:06 pm, Thu Feb 12, 2015.

By Thomas O. Meehan

A touching bit of liberal delusional thinking is their confidence in the caring power of big systems.

They actually believe that bureaucracies carry kind intentions, acting with all the benevolence of personally interested individuals. Nowhere is this more manifest than in the field of education. Educational bureaucrats, teacher’s unions, academic schools of education and the whole sorry lot celebrate their commitment to the elevation of children and the betterment of society as a whole.

My interaction with this behemoth of enlightenment concern shows another image altogether.

For over a year now, I have been getting robotic phone calls from the Philadelphia’s Ethan Allen School reporting the truancy and tardiness of a child I’ve never heard of. I have repeatedly told them that this child does not exist in my household. Yet, the calls keep coming like some Orwellian clockwork.

Along with these reports of “my child’s” absences, come exhortations to attend various community enrichment and parent involvement meetings. It appears that while they believe that I never send my child to school, I’m welcome to come down for coffee and cupcakes.

How to explain this? It seems that some middle school kid in Philly made up a phone and it happened to be mine. The fact that I don’t have a Philadelphia number slipped past the gatekeepers it seems. My name doesn’t remotely match that of “my child” But I suppose this is now typical.

The robo-calls are not of the best quality so I’m not sure what the first name of my ghostly ward is. It sounds like Insomnia, but that can’t be true, can it? I’ll keep the last name to myself.

My question is, how is it possible to run a school system of such dazzling levels of incompetence? From everything I can glean from this barrage of garbage over the phone, the school system is deeply engaged in the most progressive educational techniques. It’s just that they can’t seem to find an actual parent, or account for why little Insomnia never shows up for school.

If the bogus telephone number is never challenged, how about an actual address? Do they have one? Is some warehouse in Levittown getting all the parental mail? Do they know whether this child exists? Does the child still exist? How is it possible to spend so much money and end up with third world levels of incompetence?

In any event, I relate all this as a reminder of that one great fact of life we all seek to avoid. No arm of the government truly cares if you live or die. All bureaucracies exist to grow and to enhance their budgets while seeking to avoid responsibility for the consequences of their actions.

Anyone holding out the slightest hope of a caring government after coming into contact with it, is a monumental fool.

So, good night little Insomnia wherever you may be. Perhaps not showing up is understandable. But please, next year give out someone else’s telephone number.