Amid all the upheaval in the nation’s capital — where the only certainty is that the Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln memorials haven’t been sold off — comes a new idea to help school children nationwide.
Regardless of what anyone thinks of efforts to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, cut funding for programs that encourage vaccinations of children or allow appointed federal officials to dictate what and how colleges should teach, there was news last week that could have long-lasting, positive impacts on students for years.
Unknowingly, presidential adviser Elon Musk has given students the equivalent of a get-out-of-jail card, a permanent hall pass, an irrevocable permission slip from home. There is no better gift for the millions of students who fail a test, give the wrong answer in class, miss a homework assignment or otherwise get on the wrong side of schoolwork just because they didn’t study.
Students will see it as something positive, an opportunity to get out of trouble over an innocent mistake. Think of it as a pre-pardon, a step ahead of a presidential pardon.
Musk, who is increasingly in charge of the federal government, said it’s no big deal to get the facts wrong. Correct the mistake and life goes on. That’s about as clear a directive as a student could expect from the man who is in charge of federal directives.
Get something wrong on a test, just fix the mistake. No harm, no foul, no failing grade ever on a homework assignment since everything can be corrected as many times as needed to get it right.
It started last month when the White House announced that Musk’s team and the president’s budget office “found that there was about to be 50 million taxpayer dollars that went out the door to fund condoms in Gaza.” The Trump-Musk White House held it up as a prime example of wasteful government spending, which they are determined to stop.
Musk amplified the condoms claim on the X social media platform he owns.
President Donald Trump, who places a lot of trust in Musk, later claimed the $50 million — which the president said he froze before it could be spent — had been destined to purchase condoms “for Hamas,” the terrorist organization that led the deadly attack on Israel in 2023. The president a week later said it was $100 million. Guess the price of condoms had gone up.
But it’s not true, none of it. No U.S. dollars paid for condoms to go to Gaza or Hamas.
When informed that he was wrong, Musk did not argue the facts. He accepted the truth and told reporters, “Some of the things that I say will be incorrect and should be corrected.” He added, “So, nobody’s going to bat a thousand. I mean … we will make mistakes, but we’ll act quickly to correct any mistakes.”
The next time a teacher marks down a student’s homework assignment for a wrong answer, the kid just needs to quote Musk and correct the paper. Those D’s and C’s will become A’s and B’s.
Even better, some young entrepreneurial students can print up cards that say: “Nobody’s going to bat a thousand. We all make mistakes.” They could add Musk’s signature, which no doubt some artificial intelligence program could copy.
And if I am wrong about this, well, we all make mistakes.
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