CEO Kirk is head of “We Put Kids First Koch Charter Schools LLC Corporation, Inc.”
We join the story as CEO Kirk tells his good friends, Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy, of his testimony before the Congressional Education Committee.
CEO KIRK: As my good friend from Vulcan – Teacherken – taught me: there are some good charter schools. It can be a good concept. This is how I began gaming the system. Thank god Teacherken cannot see what I have become. He will disinvite me for Amok Time this year for sure.
MCCOY: But Jim, you can’t just drop them like that. It’s not logical, is it Spock?
SPOCK: Dr., it is in the contract. The children can be dropped and the student body evaluated based solely upon its new matrix.
MCCOY: Its new matrix....That’s educational Armageddon!!!
CEO KIRK: It’s business, Dr. Don’t take it personally.
MCCOY: God, I hate that expression.
CEO KIRK: It’s in fine print, but it’s in the contract. It’s the only way we would have won Congressional approval. We had to get the test scores up.
MCCOY: But how did you….??
SPOCK: It was quite logical.
CEO KIRK: I Kobayashi Maru’d those test scores. I merely planned ahead and followed the contract. Months ago we had the slow, the problem children, the sick, the autistic, the special needs…we had them dropped – quietly dropped – and sent back to their public schools.
SPOCK: ..And the scores increased dramatically. Of course. It is all quite logical.
CEO KIRK: And we got our funding. That is the most important thing. The needs of the shareholders outweigh the needs of the….of…..of everybody!
MCCOY: My god, Jim! What is this?? Mirror Mirror!??!! I feel like I’m still in a cordrazine hallucination! I guess I’m just an old fashioned country doctor.
SPOCK: As I’ve always suspected, Dr. You need to get with the new age, Dr. McCoy. Corporations are people now. It is all quite logical. They need no heart; they need no soul. They need merely to live forever, their lives ended only by takeover or by charter.
Just then, Spock’s on-again off-again girlfriend, Dubring chimed in.
DUBRING: If you lay off thousands you will have profit. If you keep thousands on the payroll you will still have profit. If you cut corners illegally, you will have profit. If you…
CEO KIRK: Oh, shut up. Profit is all that matters. It’s for the shareholders. Can’t you and McCoy see that?
DUBRING: I thought I was supposed to be the heartless one.
CEO KIRK: I’m the CEO of a Koch-owned entity. I get paid to be heartless.
DUBRING: Mmm, why don’t you fight for me anymore? I’m sick of Spock and his logic.
CEO KIRK: I told you. (in a whisper) I’m impotent.
DUBRING: They have pills for that now.
CEO KIRK: I will not take anything endorsed by Rush Limbaugh. Look, I’m still Captain Kirk, damnit. I have to be at least a little bit likeable in this story.
MCCOY (Quietly, to himself, sipping Romulan ale; looking wistfully out of the porthole): I am as far above the Republicans, as they are above the amoeba.