Posted on 2/24/2011, 4:19:15 AM by Red Badger
There's been a factoid making the rounds during the Wisconsin union standoff that you may have seen. I'm not sure what the ultimate source of the factoid is, but here's the meat of it as reiterated by a blogger for The Economist: Only 5 states do not have collective bargaining for educators and have deemed it illegal. Those states and their ranking on ACT/SAT scores are as follows: South Carolina – 50th North Carolina – 49th Georgia – 48th Texas – 47th Virginia – 44th If you are wondering, Wisconsin, with its collective bargaining for teachers, is ranked 2nd in the country. Now, aside from the factoid, if true, providing no real insight into whether collective bargaining is good or bad for education -- there are myriad variables at work other than collective bargaining, none of which does this control for -- but the factoid itself is highly dubious. Again, it is hard to find the original source for this, but I looked up 2009 ACT and SAT state rankings, and at the very least it seems highly unlikely that Virginia ranks 44th out of all states According to the ACT ranking, for instance, Virginia places 22nd, and on the SAT (assuming the linked to list is accurate -- I'm doing this fast), it ranked 33rd. It's hard to see how those would be combined for a 44th place overall
If you are in a discussion about Wisconsin events and a lefty uses this factoid, just tell him that Milwaukee’s schools are documented to be among the worst in the country and the teachers average 100K salary and benefits.
I try not to engage leftys in any intellectual dialogue. It is too difficult.....for them......
http://www.act.org/news/data/10/states.html?utm_campaign=cccr10&utm_source=data&utm_medium=web
Here’s a link for the 2010 act scores by state
More recently, my kids have:
had a teacher who, instead of having them read Julius Caesar, showed the class the movie Mean Girls "because it's really the same story"
Just this past week, my daughter asked her "economics" teacher where the money came from to pay for stimulus. At first he told her, "air, trees, I don't know". When she pressed further, he told her it was not something that was appropriate to be discussed in this class. When she told him her parents informed her that it was a combination of borrowing and printing money which resulted in inflation and a huge deficit, he told her that she was given incorrect information.
Here’s a link for the 2009 SAT scores by state. DC, Maine, HI, SC, GA and NY are on the bottom of this report.
http://blog.bestandworststates.com/2009/08/25/state-sat-scores-2009.aspx
http://blog.bestandworststates.com/2009/08/25/state-sat-scores-2009.aspx
Virginia: 33
North Carolina: 39
Texas: 45
Georgia: 47
South Carolina: 48
http://blog.bestandworststates.com/2009/01/29/state-rankings-on-education-spending.aspx
Some enterprising person might want to put the SAT score ranking along side the spending ranking,
Here are some facts:
Fact: Public employee union members pay dues.
Fact: Public employee unions give hundreds of millions of dollars to Democrats that they took from their members.
Fact: Those SAME Democrats are on the committees that “negotiate” the public employee union contracts.
Fact: The average public employee is paid MORE than the average non-public employee.
Now, just WHO is looking out for the people who pay the taxes that pay the public employees?
If one were to go, district-by-district, within Wisconsin or over the whole US, I can tell you the “Collective-Bargainers” would look utterly and absolutely pathetic in any comparison with non-union districts....
...If you like math detail, have at it, you could end up a Conservative Hero by publishing a detailed analysis, which would be absolutely stunning.
I teach and I have a hard time securing my job year to year because of these damn unions. The old farts never retire and could care less about the kids. Why should they when they are banking 75+ a 185 day year? Why would they if they can work a 36 hour week? Why would they when it is the only job outside of Detroit where the boss is afraid of the employees.
Burn the damn unions and let the teachers teach.
Another factor to consider is the participation rate: i.e. what percentage of students actually take the test.
You'll note that the states at the bottom of the ranking have much higher participation rates. The states at the top of the list are Midwestern states where the ACT is the primary college entrance test, and only the truly motivated graduates take the SAT -- perhaps for admission to a university outside those states.
When only the best students take the test, the overall scores are going to be higher than when almost everyone takes the test. It's not much different than a self-selecting poll that isn't a true random sample.
One reason that the SAT scores for Maine are near the bottom is that the former commission of education for the state rammed through a requirement that ALL high school students must take the SAT before they can graduate and receive a diploma. So even those students who are not college bound must take the exam.
It’s hard to get a good ACT or SAT score when your teacher can only say, “FOX LIES! FOX LIES! FOX LIES! FOX LIES!”
Oh, wait. That’s Wisconsin. In one of the most affluent districts in the state.
The ranking would likely be the same if you just ranked the % of white students in the system. I would think the correlation is determined by racial composition of the population and the rank is pulled down by large % of minorities and Illegals.
Have to normalize for the percent of the population taking the test.
Some of these state make the test mandatory which will skew their scores way to the low side.
In states where it isn’t mandatory, only the ones that see a benefit in taking the test would bother.
The point is that very few in in Wisconsin take the test (4%?), while in GA the percentage is much higher (50+%) because of a state policy. Obviously, if only the students bound for the better colleges (where the SAT or ACT is required)take th etest, the average will be higher. This is why the stat is fraudulent.
Baffling. There's a back-stabbing in both of them?
Bump
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