U.S. President George W. Bush made a shocking pronouncement today: effective immediately, all American schools will be shut down and converted into power plants and prisons. “As my abysmal mastery of the rudiments of the English language can attest, the United States’ educational system has failed us all,” Bush opined earlier today. “The tragic incident at Santana High School (which, my staff has informed me, was not named after the legendary guitarist), where 2 students were killed and many more injured by a fellow student, only underlines this point. Children are not safe in our schools. They should stay home, where the only dangers are domestic violence, parental abandonment,  malnutrition, and bad television programming. However, they should stay out of the kitchen and bathroom, which, my staff informs me, are the rooms most likely to be the scene of an accident.”

Numerous educational groups praised Bush’s action. Hattie McSpinster, President of the National Association of Home-Schooling Zombies, was first to trumpet her support of the President’s plan: “This is just splendid. Now I won’t have to work so hard to demonstrate that my home-schooled kids really do fit in! They really are perfectly normal, you see. That glazed, wide-eyed look you see so often is simply the natural result of their God-Given inquiring spirit.”

However, other groups were not as supportive. Biff McNazi, Führer of Zero Tolerance Now, sharply criticized the President: “Closing down the schools is not the answer. Suppressing school violence can only be achieved if my Vision of Ultimate Zero Tolerance is correctly implemented. Sentries must be posted at every intersection in a school. Video cameras must be installed in every bathroom stall. And, of course, students must be told, over and over again, that it is wrong to shoot your classmates, even if they are picking on you all the time.

“They should also be told that it is wrong to make adult friends who can buy guns for you. It is wrong to construct bombs, which can be easily fabricated using ordinary ingredients such as fertilizer. It is wrong to go to the library and check out the readily available books on the subject, and even worse to search for this information on the Internet.

“Any incident, no matter how small, should be widely reported on all available news media, so students can see just how wrong it is. All students should be required to report any, shall we say, antisocial tendencies they observe in their classmates. And, of course, the fundamental dictate of my Zero Tolerance Vision is that students who are reported to have these tendencies will be dealt with most strictly. Anyone who suggests that students will be unwilling to rat on their friends is simply an uneducated oaf who hasn’t learned from the lessons of history. Child informers were used with meticulous precision in the Salem Witch trials, Nazi Germany, the Stalinist Soviet Union, and the Cambodian Khmer Rouge. These historic lessons should not be ignored, or we will be doomed to make the same mistakes as our forefathers!”

Touchy McFeely, High Priestess of World Educational Harmony, Inc., had this to say of Bush’s plan: “This horrible school violence would never have occurred if each student were only told to feel better about her or his self. Schools are not a supportive enough environment for our children. A student is five times as likely to die on his or her way to school as she or he is in school itself. This clearly demonstrates that schools are not safe enough. We cannot be satisfied until a student is at least twenty times more likely to die on her or his way to school. We must quadruple the education budget so each student can be accompanied throughout the school day by his or her own personal therapist. That way, each student will feel better, and then she or he won’t kill his or her classmates.”

Another critic of Bush’s plan was Moonpuppy McNader, Tribal Leader of the Humans for Animals Association. “Here at HAA, we believe that school violence is caused by the mechanization of society. If only schools were powered by renewable resources, students would understand their intrinsic connection to the Earth. The Santana incident would never have occurred if the school cafeteria did not serve red meat. This disrespect for life led directly to the shooting of 15 innocent humans, not to mention the release of greenhouse gases through the combustion of gun powder used to propel the bullets. It is our view that humans can only understand that it is wrong to murder another human when they stop wearing murdered animals on their feet. At HAA, we realize that the world’s ecosystem can become rebalanced only when humans use the word ‘murder’ in every other sentence.”

President Bush, occupied by his daily World Leader Quiz, had no comment on the criticism of his plan.

The reaction of students to the school closing news was more acquiescent. Sophomore Rick McMather’s comment was typical: “Damn – wouldn’t you know they’d only shut down the schools after Napster was cut off!”