If teachers' union contracts are the problem, states without them should do better, right?

[Hannah Bell]

In fact, there are some 10 states in which there are virtually no legally binding K-12 teacher contracts at all (there are none in AL, AZ, GA, MS, NC, SC, TX, and VA; there is only one district with a contract in LA, and two in AR). Districts in a few of these states have entered into what are called “meet and confer” agreements about salary, benefits, and other working conditions, but administrators have the right to break these agreements at will. For all intents and purposes, these states are largely free of many of the alleged “negative union effects...”

Average 2009 NAEP Score By State Teacher Contract Laws

States with binding teacher contracts

4th grade: Math 240.0 Reading 220.7
8th grade: Math 282.1 Reading 263.7

States without binding teacher contracts

4th grade: Math 237.7 Reading 217.5
8th grade: Math 281.2 Reading 259.5

As the table shows, the states in which there are no teachers covered under binding agreements score lower than the states that have them. Moreover, even though they appear small, all but one of these (8th grade math) are rather large differences.

To give an idea of the size, I ranked each state (plus Washington D.C.) by order of its performance —its average score on each of the four NAEP exams – and then averaged the four ranks. The table below presents the average rank for the non-contract states.


Average Rank Across 4 NAEP Tests
Next to each state is its average rank

Virginia....... 16.6
Texas......... 27.3
N. Carolina.. 27.5
Georgia.......36.8
Arkansas.....38.9
S. Carolina...38.9
Arizona........43.3
Alabama......45.5
Louisiana.....47.8
Mississippi...48.6

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.

In contrast, nine of the 10 states with the highest average ranks are high coverage states, including Massachusetts, which has the highest average score on all four tests.

If anything, it seems that the presence of teacher contracts in a state has a positive effect on achievement.

Now, some may object to this conclusion. They might argue that I can’t possibly say that teacher contracts alone caused the higher scores in these states. They might say that there are dozens of other observed and unobserved factors that influence achievement, such as state laws, lack of resources, income, parents’ education, and curriculum, and that these factors are responsible for the lower scores in the 10 non-contract states.

My response: Exactly.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/guest-bloggers/how-states-with-no-teacher-uni.html

[xchrom]

1. Recommend

[Starry Messenger]

2. k&r

[dkf]

3. I am less interested in what our lower performing US system does

and more interested to know how China has managed to outscore the other Asian countries and the US in the latest international comparisons.

We are no longer the standard of excellence. It is less important how we achieve mediocrity and more important how our competitors have managed to bypass us.

[old mark]

4. Hey, c'mon - we might not be number one, but we are number 24!

Except in math where we are number 25...
I believe hatred of unions in general is responsible for the lower income and less stable homes in the states without binding union contracts...that and already existing ignorance.

mark

[dkf]

5. Unions do improve quality of life but they don't necessarily improve job performance.

The trick is how to make unions promote fairness without allowing substandard work.

[old mark]

7. Sorry - I meant the quality of life is improved for the students, enabling them

to do better in school...I think blaming teachers for the many problems of US schools is wrong...there is more than enough blame to go around.


mark

[dkf]

8. Well China is the gold standard now.

I guess we can compare attitudes, students, hours, parental involvement and all the good stuff.

[Hannah Bell]

11. false.

[proud2BlibKansan]

12. Yes let's be just like China

where they know how to make the best dog food. And baby food too.

[Hannah Bell]

10. "china" didn't outscore anyone. those scores are from shanghai only.

with a high concentration of knowledge workers & nouveau capitalists, & where the grunt laborers are recruited from the rural provinces, where their families remain.

and students who took pisa in shanghai were only a 5000+ sample of all students in the city.

as were students who took it in the us - a sample of about 5000.

plus urban china has a "test prep" culture similar to japan's, with almost all students who can afford it going to private after-school tutoring specifically to pass tests.

plus at 15 chinese students (the ones who are still in school) sit for national exams which determine their entire future.

plus:

In the Urban report, Into the Eye of the Storm, Harold Salzman and B. Lindsay Lowell acknowledge that policy makers often cite the results from PISA and TIMSS, another international exam, “supposedly showing U.S. students lagging the performance of most other countries.” But using the results to make such sweeping comparisons “stretches the PISA far beyond its appropriate or even intended use.” They go on to make several critical points about the test...

Achievement varies significantly by socioeconomic class and race: The majority of U.S. students, who are white, “actually rank near the very top on international tests...”

The rankings are not a comparison of education systems: They quote the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development: “If a country’s scale scores...are significantly higher than those in another country, it cannot automatically be inferred that the schools or particular parts of the education system in the first country are more effective than those in the second.”

The rankings do not indicate the magnitude of difference between average scores in each each country: “Without knowing the magnitude of the actual raw score differences on the PISA, we can use the test results to rank countries and populations but not know the importance of differences in rankings.”

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=219&topic_id=23599&mesg_id=23599

please get your facts straight before you post nonsense.

[dkf]

13. On the contrary...that type of test prep culture is more of what we need.

Can we get something like that though our current teacher's unions contracts?

[Gabi Hayes]

15. once again proving to be the most consistent source of LOL posting at DU

THANK you, once again!

[dkf]

16. That is what it will take to do well in this world.

The fact that you would even Lol shows why we will only fall farther behind. And it is kind of laughable to expect that type of dedication in this country.

[Gabi Hayes]

19. are we havin' a laugh?

stop! you're killing me!

[progressoid]

6. k/r

[Pale Blue Dot]

9. K & R nt

[BakedAtAMileHigh]

14. great analysis!

Thank you for the post.

[Statistical]

17. I was about to object on "correlation doesn't mean causation"

until I got to the last paragraph.

All I can say is right on.

[Overseas]

18. Recommended.

Union busting has made our country worse and worse.

Ideology is triumphing over facts.

I thought we had voted for a practical president. Pragmatic for the USA not for more corporate campaign funds for Democrats. I really thought our new president would be explaining why so-called Supply Side Economics had failed, and how Democratic Demand-Side Economics was far more practical and effective.

It has been very painful to see how wrong I was.