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We’ve all heard the myth, and many of us may have once believed it….
“Damn teachers unions are the biggest problem with education; they allow bad teachers to stay in position, not be fired, and the good teachers have to quit or go to other opportunities… This lowers teaching quality.”
If someone says it forcefully we nod in agreement because in our job site, we know of people who probably should be replaced by someone younger and with more energy. So without thinking, we take it as truth….. and echo: yea! Those damn lazy teachers unions….
If we gave it any thought, there might be some initial questions popping up in our heads…
For one, why do states with strong union laws have much brighter children than states who boast of their non-union environment? Its true. Massachusetts and Minnesota are two of the top, the South is almost all at the bottom.
For two, we must question why would teachers who were trashed and paid less, be able to teach better than teachers who were rewarded by their strong union’s negotiating power, and financially comfortable?
For three, we have to look at who with plenty of teachers to choose from, would give job security and tenure to bad teachers, while the good teachers got fired early and sent on their way?
So.
When “thought” gets applied toward this myth, it “pokes holes in it real quick”.
But really it always got chalked up to one person’s theory versus another… If you didn’t like unions, you supported the anti-union clause because there was no evidence to prove you wrong. If you didn’t like bosses, you supported the solidarity of union membership and there was no evidence to prove you wrong… And the argument went back and forth…
Guess what?
They studied data from schools, districts, and states in union areas and compared them to other schools, districts, and states in right to work areas. And the data fell right in line with what common sense as shown in the three questions above, would predict…..
They also found out why. Here is what happens in a strong unionized district.
The data confirms that, compared to districts with weak unionism, districts with strong unionism dismiss more low-quality teachers and retain more high-quality teachers. The empirical analysis shows that this dynamic of teacher turnover in highly unionized districts raises average teacher quality and improves student achievement.
Recently events allowed a test of this hypothesis. Four states changed from mandatory collective bargaining to right to work. Wisconsin, Indiana, Idaho, and Tennessee. If there was no effect by unions, their scores, their graduation rates, their teacher attrition, their overall teacher quality, would stay the same.
They didn’t. All four dropped downward since they barred collective bargaining showing that in the real world this myth has nothing backing it.
Strong union schools have higher salaries than weak union schools. Strong union districts have lower teacher attrition than weak union districts, but actually have more firings for quality reasons, than schools in non-union states, who can’t afford to fire teachers because of their higher attrition rate. They struggle to get enough teachers in their schools as it is.
Likewise the percentage of teachers entering the educational profession through an “alternative certification program”(emergency-only help) is much lower in strong union areas, and much higher in strong right to work areas.
When packaged together, the empirical evidence aligns with the hypothesis that children in strong union areas, receive better teaching than in areas of less union activity….
We always knew it; now we can prove it.
We would sincerely appreciate if 15,000 Kent Countians, (or any other county for that matter) show up at the Dover library around 5:30 pm on this Tuesday, March 3rd, with a piece of paper that says….” I opt out my child from the Smarter Balanced Assessment.”
Bear in mind that this is a demonstration of public support. All of you can’t fit in the tiny conference room, but that standing outside will send a message of fear directly where it needs to go…
WE, THE PEOPLE, OF THE GREATEST NATION EVER PUT ON EARTH, ARE SICK AND TIRED OF OUR CHILDREN BEING USED AS GUINEA PIGS TO MAKE SOME ASSHOLES RICH.
Because that is what this is all about… It has nothing to do whatsoever with helping your child cope with the world of the future. It is about who gets the money YOU pay in taxes… Your school, versus some firm out of Washington DC.
Please, please, for the good of all children everywhere, show up at the Dover Library at 5:30 pm tomorrow on Tuesday, March 3rd. You country is under attack and it needs you now, more than it ever did after 9/11. You remember how we all felt then… This is much worse. This ruins all American children… Only we can stop it and we have to, we must stop it now…
Opt out. and please make the point of showing up to protest this outrageous violation of our parental rights….. How dare they get rewarded with super high paying jobs off our children’s suffering….
How much was revealed last night at Capital School District’s Board Meeting?… The discussion began on the governor’s takeover and charter switch planned for 6 schools up north.
The first particle of discussion was in the “way” the DOE was handling Red Clay and Christina. Board member Lindell indicated the basis for these decisions is test scores, but the DOE has been known to make errors in the past….
Lindell and Superintendent Dr. Thomas spoke about Capital’s graduation rates having many errors in the past, but once the DOE officially publishes these numbers it is difficult to fix. No one knows what will be published until it is already done. Anyone can substitute any thing they want, before it goes to publishing….
This raises concerns over all credibility of these numbers. Tests are taken, scored, and tabulated by outside interests. The results then sit in the Delaware Department of Education… who then releases them in bulk once all tabulations are complete. What stops the DOE from creating any result it wants for purposes it wishes to fulfill, such as those that may help influential friends, but ruin children in the process?
Schools and districts must accept what they are given. For once published it is impossible to fix. If the DOE were deemed to have no subtle political agenda, but to consider its job being to give the most accurate snapshot as possible, there would be no reason to doubt the data. But when you have an administration like this one tied as close as it is to Rodel, an administration that has a very narrow extreme and hostile political agenda, and one that has so far used secrecy, obfuscation, and false facts to achieve those means, then all credibility in that organization and in the data it emits, is now suspect……
What if the scores for these six schools were really in the 50’s? And not the 10’s and 20’s? What if the scores of East Side Charter were really in the 50’s? And not in the 60’s and 70’s we were led to believe? Who would know?
We have to look at impact evidence. If these scores being reported for these schools were legitimate, there could be no way that 97% of Delaware’s teachers could be rated as highly effective…. Those not, at 3%… based on these scores, could be at best only 261 teachers spread across this state who were rated as NOT highly effective… That small amount would only fill just one half of all our charters, which would be the most likely place one would find them…. Leaving the other half of charters and EVERY SINGLE ONE OF DELAWARE’S PUBLIC SCHOOLS FULLY STAFFED WITH TEACHERS WHO BY THESE VERY SAME TEST SCORES ON EACH CLASS BASIS, WERE ALL RATED HIGHLY EFFECTIVE… Yet the same scores were used to show the very schools they work in to be in grave danger….
Does something not right stand out to you? It certainly appears that since teacher data can be verified (teachers know) but schools and district data banks are too large to be verified by anything other than faith, that the school numbers were simply created out of thin air, and made-up to achieve the purpose of mis-characterization….
Due to the short time frame given us on the MOU, it now seems obvious that an injunction be immediately sought before Sept. 30th in order to stay the execution of this plan, until we can get verification on these numbers whose validity now seems very suspicious. … In that court process, if so ordered by a court who can wield a heavy hand and levy penalties of contempt, we can get the information either verifying this action or denying it, in real time, and not have it ignored by the DOE as is frequently done in every single other FOIA request….
Legal action now seems to be a citizen’s most expedient way to go. I recommend trying this in Federal Court since manipulation of educational records is now a Federal crime, and since there would be less mechanization attempting to stop this process, than would be found within a friendly state-run justice system,
Later, Lindell again stated he wants parents to be able to have the choice to opt-out of standardized testing. He stated that if special education parents have the choice, all parents should. The only apparatus that allows students not to take the upcoming Smarter Balanced Assessment is the legislation passed through Senate Bill 229 in Delaware, which allows for the most severely complex special education students to have an alternate test. New legislation needs to be passed and signed before the Smarter Tests begin in April that guarantees every Delawarean parent the right to opt their child out of the test…. It will then be up to the DOE to sell parents on the benefit of the test. If they cannot do so, parents should have first right of refusal…
But as it stands, if we cannot trust that the DOE is even giving us correct test scores, it is far too fast to make what the Governor called “catastrophic changes to the status quo”, when perhaps there is nothing broken after all….
As all school boards and all 19 Superintendents already well know…. The DOE has made similar mathematical errors in the past….
Concerned parents and protective organizations need to file suit immediately… And opt out….
kavips 