Oh, this is embarrassing. Not for me or us; for some random school teacher who marked a young student’s answer to a test question “wrong.” Moreover, the teacher’s explanation of why the answer was “wrong” was even more ridiculous. The good news is the teacher’s ineptitude went viral —six years after it happened.

Worse? Forgive me for generalizing, but the state of public education in 2022 is demonstrably worse than in 2016 — but we’ll get there in a minute. First, prepare yourself to (select one or more of the following): laugh your ass off, shake your head and mumble to yourself, get frustrated, get mad as hell.

Here we go.

The following math problem was recently shared to Reddit with the caption: “The American education system,” and it instantly incited a flurry of confusion — which should not have been the case for the even semi-intelligent among us. The question reads:

Reasonableness: Marty ate 4/6 of his pizza and Luis ate 5/6 of his pizza. Marty ate more pizza than Luis. How is that possible?

The student answered: “Marty’s pizza is bigger than Luis’s pizza.”

Note that the question wasn’t: “Is this possible.” It was: “How is this possible?”

No matter. The genius teacher disagreed, marking Marty’s answer with a big “X” for “wrong, adding:

That is not possible because 5/6 is greater than 4/6 so Luis ate more.

Umm…

pic.twitter.com/YABs9j0sVV

— Orwell & Goode (@OrwellNGoode) February 19, 2022

Various folks in the Twittersphere were also baffled by the question, as well, while some of them posted comments like this:

The actual question is wrong itself. It should have said “Marty n Luis had two different pizzas. Marty ate 4/6 of his and Luis ate 5/6 of his. Marty ate more pizza than Luis. How is that possible?”. The teacher is dumb.

Wait — who’s dumb? The question was posed exactly as it was intended to be posed. Moreover, it is labeled “Reasonableness.” It is intended to force children to think outside of the box.

The actual question is wrong itself. It should have said “Marty n Luis had two different pizzas. Marty ate 4/6 of his and Luis ate 5/6 of his. Marty ate more pizza than Luis. How is that possible?”. The teacher is dumb.

— Washed One 🥋 (@Colton_Duke) February 20, 2022

Other Twitter-ers suggested Marty’s pieces were bigger than Luis’s pieces, which immediately reminded me of one New York Yankee great Yogi Berra’s many Yogi-isms. As the Hall-of-Famer told the tale, after he was asked by a server in a pizza joint if he’d rather have his pizza cut into four or six pieces, Yogi responded: “You better cut the pizza in four pieces because I’m not hungry enough to eat six.”

In the slim chance that any of you RedStaters are anywhere near as baffled as the people I described above were, the size of the pieces is irrelevant — unless Marty’s pizza is larger than Luis’s. So, the poor little kid’s answer was correct, and the dumbass know-it-all teacher was hilariously wrong — for all the interwebs to see.

To be sure, there are untold numbers of wonderful, dedicated teachers across America who commit themselves to do their part to provide the best education for our kids they can. That said, the above idiotic teacher is a quintessential example of just a fraction of the utter failure of the American education system as a whole. He or she should be fired immediately. Not for his or her ridiculously wrong response to the pizza question; for being inept as hell. That cannot happen, of course. (See: “pathetic, dictatorial, teachers unions.”)

In an American Thinker piece titled “What we have here is a failure to educate,” contributor Ned Cosby observed:

Is the USA in 2022 a military superpower? Yes. Is the US economy in 2022 a superpower? Yes. Is the USA in 2022 a superpower in terms of public education? Not hardly or, as Biden likes to say, “C’mon man!”

Why isn’t America a superpower in terms of public education? Don’t we pay a lot of money for public education in America? We are right near the top in terms of what we pay per student but, alas, we don’t get much bang for our bucks.

While I’m not sure America is a “superpower” in anything under hapless Joe Biden, Cosby’s questions and assertion in the second paragraph are spot-on.

According to the 2021 Program for International Student Assessment, U.S. public schools are mediocre to below average. In reading skills, noted Cosby, the U.S. ranks 13th internationally, 18th in science, and in math? “A pitiful 38th.” Meanwhile, teachers unions across America are far more concerned with COVID mandates, critical race theory, and systemic racism. Arrogantly so, as we saw in Loudoun County, Virginia, Chicago, as elsewhere across the country.

Is it any wonder that America’s parents have had enough?

Oh — I almost forgot. Remember when moronic Oregon Gov. Kate Brown in July 2021 eliminated math, reading, and writing proficiency standards for high school graduation? High school graduation? Me, too.

Meanwhile, all this talk of pizza made me hungry for the stuff — although not that hungry.

So, when I order it, I’m gonna only have it cut into two pieces.