Friday, November 17, 2017

Make America Dumb and Dumber



Teacher unions are bad for America, right? That’s what most Republicans say. Their brief against unions? These labor groups protect poorly performing teachers; bargain costly salaries, benefits and pensions; and protect teachers, not students.
Following this script, Wisconsin gutted collective bargaining rights for teachers in 2011.
Six years later, we have data on some effects of the law.
On the employment side, average salaries for teachers in the state have fallen by 2.6% and benefits declined 18.6%.
In addition, 10.5% of public school teachers in Wisconsin left the profession after the 2010-2011 school year, up from 6.4% the year before. The exit rate last year was 8.8%.
In an October news report on testing in Wisconsin schools, only 42.7 percent of students performed as proficient or advanced in English (2016 test). In math, only 40.5 percent of students showed proficiency.
But this is the GOP recipe for an informed electorate and a workforce that performs 1950s-type resource extraction jobs (mining in Kentucky, timber and paper processing in Wisconsin).

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