Our Mission Capstone
The mission of the Andover Central School System is to inspire within all the desire to learn, to succeed, and to expand the horizon for each individual. Our school will be a safe teaching community, which celebrates our achievements and encourages active partnerships with families and the entire community. We will empower our students to embrace the challenges as worthy citizens in our American society of representative democracy.
Let's start at the top. What the hell is a mission capstone? If you've never heard this term before, don't feel bad; it's nonsense. The author (insert your own air-quotes) has used the word "captsone" way out of context. This is not a particularly propitious start to a school's mission statement.
The lack of parallelism in the first sentence is so awkward even our author should have been able to catch it. And when did Andover get a school system? New York City has a school system. Los Angeles has a school system. Andover has a school. There are other problems with this sentence, but there are more pressing matters ahead.
The next sentence is my favorite because it almost passes as acceptable, especially when compared to the others around it. It's long, which always helps to mask an author's ineptitude, but there's one big problem: the word "community" appears twice in this sentence, each time referring to {cough} different communities. That, dear reader, is not good style. This sentence, too, has more problems. (Who would encourage inactive partnerships?) But let's move on. The last sentence is just begging for attention.
Actually, there's really not much I can say in terms of constructive criticism. This sentence is just bad -- really, really bad: "worthy citizens in our American society of representative democracy." Someone actually wrote that without the intention of sounding like a complete ass. And then someone else read it, apparently found nothing wrong with it, and published it on the Internet for the whole world to see. Amazing.
Are there no English teachers at that school anymore? There were two when I was there. Forget English teachers. Are there no native English speakers? And before you criticize me for being too harsh, remember, this is a school. A school! Where children go to learn how to use the English language like intelligent [expletive] people, not like bumbling [same expletive] idiots. You can do better than that, ACS. And if you can't, just close up shop now before you tarnish any more brains.
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