Quote:Out of these 10 states, only one (Virginia) has an average rank above the median, while four are in the bottom 10, and seven are in the bottom 15. These data make it very clear that states without binding teacher contracts are not doing better, and the majority are actually among the lowest performers in the nation.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-...r-uni.html

How much does it have to do with the teachers? Not sure. It is interesting numbers, however.

It would be more interesting to see what happens to a state when a union forms or is disbanded.

Just comparing states that do and do not have teacher's unions seems pointless.

Judging by the named states, I'd say it's just as if not more likely an urban/rural/cultural issue... at least that's what we're told about SAT scores.

Sort of a waste of an article. Nice bit of rhetorical slight of hand I will say.

First he says that people make the case that Union contracts are the cause of low performing students, yet offers no one who actually says that. Union contracts make it next to impossible to get rid of under performing teachers, but tenure does the same thing, and it's not always union negotiated.

He then goes on to prove a counter point to a point that was never made, again, that union contracts are the cause of poor performance in students.

Bottom line though is that nothing he said has a shred of anything to do with what's going on in Wisconsin right now. That's all about dollars, not performance.

Talking about Ohio here.

(02-20-2011 07:51 PM)mlb Wrote:  Talking about Ohio here.

I thought Ohio was the other thread?

Didn't see Ohio called out in the article or the first post. Sorry if you were going state specific.

Ohio was specific to their senate bill, correct. Wisconsin is in a world of its own... they get paid substantially more than Ohio, and pay almost nothing for healthcare and retirement. Ohio pays 20% for healthcare, 10% towards retirement. The local districts then match 10% towards retirement. The teachers in Ohio have already agreed to go to 13% towards retirement.

(02-20-2011 07:58 PM)mlb Wrote:  Ohio was specific to their senate bill, correct. Wisconsin is in a world of its own... they get paid substantially more than Ohio, and pay almost nothing for healthcare and retirement. Ohio pays 20% for healthcare, 10% towards retirement. The local districts then match 10% towards retirement. The teachers in Ohio have already agreed to go to 13% towards retirement.

Ok, you've confused me. There's a thread on the Ohio senate bill you started and then this one on where states that aren't union rank nationally. Are they connected somehow?

(02-20-2011 08:26 PM)Ninerfan1 Wrote:  Ok, you've confused me. There's a thread on the Ohio senate bill you started and then this one on where states that aren't union rank nationally. Are they connected somehow?

Sorry, just pointing out that non-union states don't necessarily teach their students better or more efficiently than the union states (as many believe will happen if they get rid of the teaching unions). That is the point of the post... I honestly don't know enough of the details to decipher whether there are other significant components to these issues.

I actually think that a lot of fields benefit from unions. My problems are when certain situations require you to join a union to remain employed or when the unions lose the ability to be realistic with market conditions.

I checkd 4 of the states that guy mentioned and the teachers are unionized.

States need to get rid of pensions and go to a 401k system so teachers can roll it over if they change jobs, move out of state or change careers. The idea of the state trying to manage the retirement of teachers when they should be more concerned about the kids. taxpayers should not be responsible for retirement of public workers. The problem is we are paying more for the retired teachers than the new teachers. Businesses are getting out of pensions. That is way the auto makers got into trouble. Get them out of the pensions and into a 401k plan. The idea of the state paying for workers no longer working is insane. The next generation of public workers need to take their own responsibility for retirement.

the REAL bottom line to this is that when the state is broke... when expenses outstrip revenues and unemployment is relatively high etc etc etc... the state needs to be able to make cuts. I'm sick and tired of the ONLY answer being higher taxes.... because NOBODY making that call has a vested interest in NOT raising taxes.

In Texas, schools are funded through property taxes. Hard to raise revenues when property values are sliding and properties are going into foreclosure...

Hambone... simple, cut the funding. At that point the local school system and the local union will have to make due.

(02-21-2011 06:19 PM)mlb Wrote:  Hambone... simple, cut the funding. At that point the local school system and the local union will have to make due.

You know that and I know that... but the school system and the local unions obviously think we're a bottomless pit. Washington sure does.

I'm a big proponent of local control. What I'd like to see is the teachers go to the school boards rather than the state... and say... I don't need this... I don't need that. I'd rather we cut "x" than cut our salaries or pensions... especially if "x" means overhead (assistant vice-principals and administrators).

I'm not out to cut salaries, but I AM out to cut waste at a time when money is so tight. I don't mean to say that spending 50,000 or 100,000 or whatever on a teacher is waste, but if I can get someone qualified to do it for 45 or 95, and money is tight, then we have to make choices. If you can save me that money by consolidation, then I'm cool with that as well

Let's get one thing straight. It's not the teachers who are the problem. It's the administrators.

The non-productive overhead that has been grafted onto our educational system in the last 50 years is incredible. Ask a teacher, he or she will most likely tell you exactly that. They cost a lot of money and they do more to harm rather than help the teachers to do their jobs.

I think there ought to be standards laid on the school district. Spend at least 90% of your budget in the classroom, no more than 10% on admin. That's a hypothetical percentage, someone more knowledgeable than I am could provide a better idea just what the breakdown should be.

And the unions are the chief advocates for those administrators.

(02-21-2011 08:58 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Let's get one thing straight. It's not the teachers who are the problem. It's the administrators.

The non-productive overhead that has been grafted onto our educational system in the last 50 years is incredible. Ask a teacher, he or she will most likely tell you exactly that. They cost a lot of money and they do more to harm rather than help the teachers to do their jobs.

I think there ought to be standards laid on the school district. Spend at least 90% of your budget in the classroom, no more than 10% on admin. That's a hypothetical percentage, someone more knowledgeable than I am could provide a better idea just what the breakdown should be.

My wife and I "ran" the PTO school store at a public school. The principal decided that highliters would help them pass the TAKS test, so he decided to buy 1,000 of them. We could have bought them for him for $0.29 each. He couldn't buy them from the school store because we weren't an "district vendor". There was a committee paid to administer things like that. He went to one of the preferred vendors and paid $0.89 cents each. $600 wasted at one school on one item, PLUS the cost of the people paid to make bad decisions. HISD probably has 1mm students. $600,000 in waste for one pen for all of them.

Don't TELL me there isn't waste in education.

We need to do three things:

1. Pay teachers a competitive salary
2. Change the procedures to put teachers back in charge of classrooms
3. Hold teachers accountable, with real penalties for f'ing up.

How about we got rid of most of the crap the Dept of Ed is doing now, and instead give each student a $3000 voucher, to be spent $2500 on teacher salaries and $500 on teaching/learning supplies (a huge problem if you ask most teachers), by the eligible public school which each student attends. To be eligible, a school must keep admin costs below a threshold level, perform testing of all students every year and use the results to assign students to fast, slow, and medium tracks and use the metric of average number of months of progress by students to measure teachers. Students cannot advance to the next grade without passing the test, and how high you score determines whether you go on the A, B, or C track. That's a rough outline.

(02-21-2011 09:14 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  We need to do three things:

1. Pay teachers a competitive salary
2. Change the procedures to put teachers back in charge of classrooms
3. Hold teachers accountable, with real penalties for f'ing up.

How about we got rid of most of the crap the Dept of Ed is doing now, and instead give each student a $3000 voucher, to be spent $2500 on teacher salaries and $500 on teaching/learning supplies (a huge problem if you ask most teachers), by the eligible public school which each student attends. To be eligible, a school must keep admin costs below a threshold level, perform testing of all students every year and use the results to assign students to fast, slow, and medium tracks and use the metric of average number of months of progress by students to measure teachers. Students cannot advance to the next grade without passing the test, and how high you score determines whether you go on the A, B, or C track. That's a rough outline.

I never agree with giving an all encompassing test and placing students on tracks Japan style. If there's one thing I know it's the fact that a national standardized test would be biased towards the kids around bigger metro areas. There's complaining about the test being unfair to kids outside of the Triangle so I know a test across the nation would catch it.

As far as placing the kids on tracks; I feel that there needs to be an opportunity to get off of that track and improve your position over time. I would hate to be the parent of a kid who's stuck on the slow track.

(02-21-2011 09:32 PM)nomad2u2001 Wrote:  

(02-21-2011 09:14 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  We need to do three things:

1. Pay teachers a competitive salary
2. Change the procedures to put teachers back in charge of classrooms
3. Hold teachers accountable, with real penalties for f'ing up.

How about we got rid of most of the crap the Dept of Ed is doing now, and instead give each student a $3000 voucher, to be spent $2500 on teacher salaries and $500 on teaching/learning supplies (a huge problem if you ask most teachers), by the eligible public school which each student attends. To be eligible, a school must keep admin costs below a threshold level, perform testing of all students every year and use the results to assign students to fast, slow, and medium tracks and use the metric of average number of months of progress by students to measure teachers. Students cannot advance to the next grade without passing the test, and how high you score determines whether you go on the A, B, or C track. That's a rough outline.

I never agree with giving an all encompassing test and placing students on tracks Japan style. If there's one thing I know it's the fact that a national standardized test would be biased towards the kids around bigger metro areas. There's complaining about the test being unfair to kids outside of the Triangle so I know a test across the nation would catch it.

As far as placing the kids on tracks; I feel that there needs to be an opportunity to get off of that track and improve your position over time. I would hate to be the parent of a kid who's stuck on the slow track.

The idea of standardized tests being biased always comes up when talking about salaries, but rarely when talking about student performance. As I noted earlier, this would help explain why typically rural states like Texas (which often votes Republican) would often score lower on standardized tests than students from New York (which often votes Democrat). Unfortunately, that doesn't sit well with certain groups until we start talking about pay for performance.

It seems we could adjust for things like that... i.e. the kids in district 1 all live in the same area... so any variation would be muted. The top 50% go on track "a". The next 30% on "b" and the bottom on "c". You can petition to be moved up at will (no questions asked) but you must maintain a "c" average to stay with one semester to make u[ any shortfalls... then you have to sit out a year or test in again. As I understand it, very much how "magnet" programs work.

Owl... yes... good broad strokes. Supplies are important. Lots of teachers spend their own money on them. Even if "bonuses" were paid in "classroom bucks" it would be helpful. We implimented this through the PTO... teachers would get awards/gifts/stipends at retail and we'd buy them wholesale... thus a $500 retail stipend would only cost the PTO $200. Everybody won.