by Rusty Scribes

One of the board members of a local school district has finally come clean on why they demoted a popular principal and it’s not because of some budgetary technicality. The board member who is known as Mister Donuts by his colleagues said that the principal in question was just too good, popular and effective and had created an environment that provided too much opportunity and hope for students. Mister Donuts referred to a newly released study that demonstrated that students actually perform better under lousy principals.

According to Mister Donuts who voted for the demotion, a seismic shift influenced his decision based on a groundbreaking study by the Institute for Questionable Educational Practices (IQEP). The study, titled “Ode to Incompetence: How Truly Terrible Principals Lead to Test Score Triumph and Improved Outcomes,” led him to vote the way he did. 

“The goal now is to hire mediocre and below average principals who will just tow the line,” explained Donuts. 

Dr. Bartholomew Brick, lead researcher and self-proclaimed “patron saint of mediocrity,” presented the research at a conference aptly themed “Lowering the Bar: A Recipe for Success.” Brick’s team compared standardized test scores at schools where the principals were considered competent with those where they were deemed ineffective.

“We discovered a clear inverse relationship,” Brick explained. “Schools with principals who couldn’t manage a goldfish bowl, let alone a student body, consistently boasted higher test scores and better student outcomes.”

Apparently, the key ingredient in this educational alchemy is a potent cocktail of ineptitude and apathy. Principals who micromanaged lunch menus instead of curriculum, who implemented nonsensical dress codes and whose motivational speeches dripped with clichés (“Reach for the stars… or at least the ceiling!”) tended to foster an environment of student self-reliance.

“Faced with a leadership vacuum,” Dr. Brick elaborated, “students are forced to become resourceful. They learn to navigate chaos, and most importantly, avoid adult authority figures at all costs. These are precisely the skills needed to think critically and survive in today’s America.”

Mister Donuts ended by reminding us that the principal they demoted was just doing too good of a job.

“The ultimate goal is to create an environment where the students can thrive in spite of our ineptitudes. We intend to provide that for now on.”