On Wednesday, the N&O ran a story about the heinous, egregious, baffling lack of judgment of Rosewood Middle School in Goldsboro. The principal felt her kids didn’t have all the great, completely necessary technology that Wake schools have and signed off on a fundraiser where “a $20 donation to Rosewood Middle School will get a student 20 test points — 10 extra points on two tests of the student’s choosing.” Clemson ethicist Daniel Wueste really drew a line in the sand on this: “To my mind, it’s the integrity of the educational enterprise that’s at stake here.” I don’t think it’s that apocalyptic, dude, considering the “free” middle school bonus questions typically are “In what country is the U.S. currently at war?” giveaways.

But the story had legs. LEGS. I understand papers need content to fill in the blanks between the Top 10 Sarah Palin lies(November 2009 edition) article and sports, but damn, the Keating Five received less “ethical” attention than this.

All the McClatchy papers ran it. USA Today opined “Rosewood should adopt the type of honor codes and seminars that many schools use to teach ethical dilemmas. As for raising money, it’s time to go back to bake sales and car washes,” while the Wall Street Journal got snarky: “We see the state’s point. If, as the principal claims, passing a test or getting a B instead of an A isn’t worth 20 bucks, how could it possibly be worth the effort?” Jay Leno deemed it his “Outrage of the Week” on his outrage of a show. Free Republic readers were busy connecting the dots to Obama and one Huffington Post commenter could barely hold the vom in.

The indignation was not limited to the U.S. Editors in Taiwan know a good story when they see it. As did Northern Ireland, Canada, New Zealand, and Lebanon(PA).

If only Bev’s decision to cut $225 million in education funding had generated as much buzz…