I received a complaint about the wording of the title accompanying the post by Leonie Haimson. Leonie’s post was titled: “Leonie Haimson: Warning! The New York City Department of Education Is Infested with Broadies, TFA!”

Mike Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute (and Foundation) [net assets: $44 million] was offended by the title. He asked me not to refer to people as “bugs,” because an “infestation” of Broadies and TFA implies bugs. I wrote the title, not Leonie. I have been writing snappy titles ever since I worked as an editorial assistant at the now-defunct Democratic Socialist magazine called “The New Leader” in the early 1960s (where it was always “Five Minutes to Midnight” somewhere in the world.)

So out of deference to Mike’s wishes, I want to make clear that people who are Broadies and TFA are definitely not bugs.

The term “infestation” usually refers either to pests or parasites. But not always.

They might be zombies. There is such a thing as a “zombie infestation,” like when a whole lot of people trained by Eli Broad or Wendy Kopp (neither of whom was ever a teacher) arrive to kill your school and scatter the children. I googled and found that “zombie apocalypse” and “zombie infestation” are interchangeable. There are numerous references to “zombie-infested” as an adjective and “zombie infestation” as a noun. The zombies are trained to eat your public school and give the facilities to private management.

Do you have another word that fits with “infestation”?

Whatever you call them, anyone who makes a living by closing public schools belongs on the blog’s Wall of Shame. I’m adding the Broad Foundation and TFA.