Randi Weingarten, head of the deceptively benign sounding United Federation of Teachers*, argues in today’s Wall Street Journal that public education is every bit as deserving of a bailout as Wall Street is/was. After all, it’s for the children.

Meanwhile, ‘Puter’s pretend-girlfriend Megan McArdle argues convincingly that it is primarily teachers’ unions that are barring the schoolhouse door by fighting tooth and nail any meaningful school reform whatsoever.

Again, for those of you who came in late, teachers’ unions care not one whit for your children. Individual teachers do, sure. But teachers’ unions? Not at all. Unions have but one function: improve their members’ wages, benefits and work conditions at all costs. As Ms. McArdle notes, New York State Unite teachers fought reforms thereby tanking up to $700 million in additional federal “Race to the Top” funding. So the next time a teachers’ union tells you it’s for the children, tell them to stuff it in their food hole.

Were it up to ‘Puter, he would respond to Ms. Weingarten’s public education proposal thus. We are happy to provide states an additional $23 billion in federal money to be lavished on highly compensated public school teachers. In return, each state receiving funding must: (1) become a right to work state, including public workers; (2) immediately terminate all defined benefit retirement plans in favor of defined contribution plans; (3) revoke permanent tenure; and (4) remove lock-step pay increases (i.e., implement pay for performance). It’s for the children, after all.

*’Puter wants a modification of the National Labor Relations Act to require that all unions actually use the word “union” in their names, along with their profession, geographical coverage and a unique number. For example, “United Federation of Teachers” would become “National Teachers’ Union #57.” “New York State United Teachers” becomes “New York Teachers’ Union #34” The “American Federation of Labor” becomes “National Catchall Workers’ Union #2.” Let’s call them what they are: ugly, soul-sucking collectives.

'Puter

Always right, unless he isn’t, the infallible Ghettoputer F. X. Gormogons claims to be an in-law of the Volgi, although no one really believes this.

’Puter carefully follows economic and financial trends, legal affairs, and serves as the Gormogons’ financial and legal advisor. He successfully defended us against a lawsuit from a liquor distributor worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid deliveries of bootleg shandies.

The Geep has an IQ so high it is untestable and attempts to measure it have resulted in dangerously unstable results as well as injuries to researchers. Coincidentally, he publishes intelligence tests as a side gig.

His sarcasm is so highly developed it borders on the psychic, and he is often able to insult a person even before meeting them. ’Puter enjoys hunting small game with 000 slugs and punt guns, correcting homilies in real time at Mass, and undermining unions. ’Puter likes to wear a hockey mask and carry an axe into public campgrounds, where he bursts into people’s tents and screams. As you might expect, he has been shot several times but remains completely undeterred.

He assures us that his obsessive fawning over news stories involving women teachers sleeping with young students is not Freudian in any way, although he admits something similar once happened to him. Uniquely, ’Puter is unable to speak, read, or write Russian, but he is able to sing it fluently.

Geep joined the order in the mid-1980s. He arrived at the Castle door with dozens of steamer trunks and an inarticulate hissing creature of astonishingly low intelligence he calls “Sleestak.” Ghettoputer appears to make his wishes known to Sleestak, although no one is sure whether this is the result of complex sign language, expert body posture reading, or simply beating Sleestak with a rubber mallet.

‘Puter suggests the Czar suck it.