Before you Trash the Teacher Unions…

You might want to read this.

How do states which allow collective bargaining for unions compare, academically, against those that don’t? Let’s first look at HS graduation rates:

Grad Rates- The red arrow points to Wisconsin, where collective bargaining rights are in jeopardy under the current governor. WI had a 88.5% grad rate in 2007-8, second only to Vermont (where Vermont-NEA is the state’s largest union*).

The blue arrows point to GA,NC,SC,TX, and VA: states that ban collective bargaining for their teachers (and other public employees).They rank among the lowest in HS grad rates.

Maybe unionized teachers can graduate students, but what about their student’s performance? For this one, let’s actually use the so-called “reformers” narrow criteria: high stakes exams. Here are the ACT/SAT scores by state:

ACT Scores- In red, again, is Wisconsin, which scores among the top (all-unionized) players like Washington, New York, and Connecticut. And, in blue, again, the non-unionized states. Their national rank in ACT scores: 50th, 49th, 48th, 47th and 44th!

What about internationally? To see that countries with highly-unionized workforces provide better education to their students, just look at the 2006 PISA results, the international comparison of students in reading, science, mathematics etc. that is so often used to make Americans despair on their international performance:

Finland, second only to Korea in 2006, where a 2004 survey revealed that 89% of Fins believed union membership of a trade union organization is important**. (An even higher percentage of teachers than that are unionized in the country.) Similar statistics rein in Belgium and Canada, where the Canadian Teacher Federation represents over 200,000 canadian teachers.

So while we may be needing to cut corners and trim budgets, those reformers interested in increasing student performance may want to be careful about advocating against collective bargaining agreements for teachers.

Sources:

HS Grad Rates- http://www-958.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/manyeyes/datasets/public-high-school-averaged-freshm/versions/1.txt

ACT/SAT Scores- http://www.publicagenda.org/charts/state-state-sat-and-act-scores

PISA Country Profiles- http://pisacountry.acer.edu.au/

*Source: http://www.vtnea.org/

**Source: http://keyuutiset.multiedition.fi/News/2004.10.18_Support_for_union_membership_almost_universal_in_Finland.html