I think I can offer an explanation in a few sentence, rather than the full article Diane Ravitch offered: teachers in the U.S. wonder why the brunt of the cost of rescuing the banks and financial sector must be borne on the backs of the public service, rather than those who bilked the system out of billions in the first place. Meanwhile, there is this supposition that the unions are the cause of low test scores and poorly performing schools, but the data does not bear this out. Quite the opposite; it is the non-union schools that occupy the bottom of the effectiveness ladder. According to this report, the five states that have "right-to-word" legislation (ie., anti-union legislation) occupy the following positions: South Carolina – 49th, North Carolina – 38th, Georgia – 48th, Texas – 45th, Virginia – 34th. "Actually," Ravitch argues, "the states with the highest performance on national tests are Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Vermont, and New Hampshire, where teachers belong to unions that bargain collectively for their members."
Today: 6 Total: 87 [Direct link] [Share]
