“China Sentences Man To Year In Jail For Ringing Exam Bell 5 Minutes Early”

The title of this post is the headline of this (amusing?) article which tells a story that is arguably not quite as bad as it sounds or maybe actually even worse.  Here are the details:

A man in the central Chinese province of Hunan was sentenced to a year in prison for improperly administering the nation’s ultra-competitive national college entrance exam, according to multiple reports.

Xiao Yulong, now a former employee of the high school in which the exam was administered, rang the bell and ended the exam four minutes and 48 seconds early, which disrupted the test for approximately 1,000 students, according to the Xinhua news agency.

A written statement issued by the county people’s court on October 26 said that Xiao, 54, “was careless in his work and mistakenly rang the bell too early, resulting in adverse social impact.”   He was officially sentenced to one year in jail with a one-year reprieve for negligence. However, the one-year reprieve means he will likely serve “either very little or no time inside,” Reuters reports.

Thousands of students and parents had gathered in protest against the teacher’s actions at the local ministry of education and the school prior to Xiao’s sentencing.

The reported reprieve suggests that Xiao Yulong was ultimately just given relative a slap on the wrist; yet it is still remarkable and disturbing that an official’s negligent test administration became the subject of a criminal prosecution.  Bringing this story back to the US, perhaps there is a lesson here for politicians worried about underperforming public school systems and competing in the global market with China.  Maybe mayors like Rahm Emanuel need to start advocating for jail time for negligent teachers like in China when facing off with teachers’ unions (as public school battles rage on in Chicago and elsewhere).