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Keeping it real, grand theft auto

Guy Speckman by Guy Speckman
December 8, 2023
in Ponder the Thought
Parkville man involved in fatal wrong-way crash
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Got my tax bill. This seems like a good time to remind you that public education in America is broken. Our education system continues to get worse at actually educating, yet the burden on taxpayers continues to rise to unmanageable levels. Teachers are underpaid, administrators are overabundant and probably overpaid and we have abandoned common sense education concepts in favor of “getting along” with bulldozer parents and coddled children.

My grandpa would be proud of how “old man” my takes on education have become.

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I still believe that schools could dramatically increase their effectiveness and probably their cost efficiency by hiring an Administrator for Keeping it Real (KIR). Just some retired old coach with large forearms that walks around in banded shorts and Pony shoes and tells students, parents and administrators when they’re doing something stupid.

We’d need Sen. Luetkemeyer to take a break from K9 bills and write a bill that provides complete legal immunity to these special administrators. They would have to have guaranteed employment with no ability to fire them and then just let them loose on public school campuses.

Parent comes in to complain that “little Johnny” got cold at recess, the Keeping it Real (KIR) Administrator could storm in the office and tell the parent to send a bigger coat and quickly escort the parent out of the building by the nape of their neck.

Superintendent suggests he/she needs to attend a conference in San Diego in February, the KIR Administrator slaps a conference brochure for Detroit in December on their desk and says, “how about you attend this one instead?”

The KIR administrator would have immunity to slap or double leg takedown any teacher or student that touches a thermostat or leaves a light on in an unattended room or anyone that complains about lunch options.

I’m a solution guy, just comes naturally, no need to thank me.


My heart is full. The new Grand Theft Auto game is set to be released in 2025. Nothing says the holidays to my family like crowding around the Play Station and cruising through video versions of our greatest cities committing felonies and such, just pure joy. Finally, the world is becoming normal again.


I had a couple of keeping it real parents in my life. As a young kid, I decided to hide from my mother in a department store in Chicago. She panicked when she couldn’t find me and then when I appeared, her relief turned into a life lesson as she swiftly attempted to keep it real by slapping me upside my head. She was a lefty, so it came from way down south and I was able to duck, and it missed its mark, but I never hid from her again, that’s keeping it real.

(Guy Speckman can be reached at gspeckman@me.com or solving the education crisis one column at a time)

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Guy Speckman

Guy Speckman

Guy Speckman is a Landmark contributing columnist with his Ponder the Thought column. Speckman is the former owner of the Savannah Reporter, where the column appeared for nearly two decades. Speckman is a former city government manager, serving as city administrator in Maysville, Plattsburg and Savannah before entering business. He is a graduate of Northwest Missouri State University (1989). He is originally from Plattsburg, Missouri. He and his wife own and operate a real estate valuation firm and a daily legal newspaper and are the parents of two grown children.

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