Oakland Teacher Mistakenly Teaches 'Economics'

OAKLAND, CA—In an effort to abide by the Oakland Public Schools’ new “ebonics” instruction regulations, one area teacher mistakenly began teaching the subject of “economics” to her 11th-grade class Monday. Suzanne Byrne, a 13-year teaching veteran, badly confused students when she attempted to explain to them such complex economic principles as stagflation, Keynesian incrementalism, and the invisible hand of laissez-faire capitalism. School superintendent Melvin Washington was outraged upon learning of Byrne’s actions, saying: “The voodoo she was teaching involved numbers and complex calculations, which no high-school student can reasonably be expected to understand.” Washington insisted that instruction be limited to the study of ebonics, or—in the school’s new higher-level Sanford and Son-themed curriculum—the study of “Lamontics,” which helps young people better understand Lamont Sanford.