In Which We Revolutionize Basketball for Arne Duncan

Last night, on Twitter, Arne Duncan congratulated the USA Women's Basketball Team for a wonderful performance. But a lot of teachers on Twitter questioned it. For one thing, how do we know they're doing well if there isn't a charter team to ensure healthy competition? And why aren't we doing this right now? Isn't this a crisis that can't wait for solutions?

Also, it's important we fire the bottom 10%, so as to ensure we are truly fielding the best team. And it's not enough that they do an excellent job. Sure, it looks like they're doing well. But how do we know they're doing well unless we give their opponents tests in reading and math twice a year and check the improvements from September to June? We really can't go by measures like whether or not they win games. What does that mean, ultimately?

Let's also make sure that the charter teams get space in the stadiums. I don't think it's fair we allow our teams to practice in courts by themselves. Lets collect a few trash cans, hollow them out, and dump them in the basement for our public teams to use. The charter teams could use the ones upstairs. And I don't want to hear that the players are only three feet tall, or 9 years old, or that they've never played before. We will accept no excuses.

Basketball training will be done by hedge-funders and billionaires who have no training or experience whatsoever about basketball. However, since they've established their success by accumulating all that money, we'll rely on their excellent judgment. We will not bother to study or test their ideas before enacting them systemwide, and we will establish blue-ribbon panels with celebrities and rich people, and not basketball players, to praise the ideas on the media. When they fail, we will close stadiums and replace entire teams.

We will, of course, start an organization called Democrats for Basketball Reform. We will travel around with suitcases full of cash to help persuade legislators. We will start a satellite group, Students for Basketball Reform, to give us the appearance of credibility. Then we will go after those darn unions, and claim they only pursue adult interests. We will show basketball players how cool it is to work without contracts, to get rid of that health insurance, to pay for their own uniforms and balls, and to work in substandard conditions. Finally, we will halve teams so as to save money, and demand equal performance. No excuses.

Because that's the way we do things in America. We have a model, and even if it proves to be utterly without merit, we must replicate it everywhere, immediately, to avert the crisis we contend to be in.