4.4% annual salary increase for the next four years for Chicago Teachers

[CA renter]

Some data:

Reading, 4th grade level:

“After adjusting for selected student characteristics,
the difference in means was near zero and
not significant. In the second set of analyses, Catholic
schools and Lutheran schools were each compared to
all public schools. The results, both with and without
adjustments, were similar to the corresponding results
for all private schools.”

………

Math, 4th grade level:

“After adjusting
for selected student characteristics, the difference in
means was -4.5 and significantly different from zero.
(Note that a negative difference implies that the average
school mean was higher for public schools.) In the
second set, Catholic schools and Lutheran schools were
each compared to all public schools. The results, both
with and without adjustments, were similar to the corresponding
results for all private schools.”

……….

Reading, 8th grade level:

“After adjusting for selected
student characteristics, the difference in means was
7.3 points and significantly different from zero. In
COMPARING PRIVATE SCHOOLS AND PUBLIC SCHOOLS USING HIERARCHICAL LINEAR MODELING iii
the second set, Catholic, Lutheran, and Conservative
Christian schools were each compared to all public
schools. The results, both with and without adjustments,
were generally similar to the corresponding
results for all private schools. The only exception was
that the average difference in adjusted school mean
scores between Conservative Christian schools and all
public schools was not significantly different from zero.”

…………..

Math, 8th grade level:

“After adjusting for selected student characteristics, the difference
in means was nearly zero and not significant. In
the second set, Catholic, Lutheran, and Conservative
Christian schools were each compared to all public
schools. While the results for Catholic schools, both
with and without adjustments, were very similar to the
corresponding results for all private schools, the results
for the other two types differed.”

………..

“Summary
In grades 4 and 8 for both reading and mathematics,
students in private schools achieved at higher levels
than students in public schools. The average difference
in school means ranged from almost 8 points for grade 4
mathematics, to about 18 points for grade 8 reading.
The average differences were all statistically significant.
Adjusting the comparisons for student characteristics
resulted in reductions in all four average differences
of approximately 11 to 14 points. Based on adjusted
school means, the average for public schools was significantly
higher than the average for private schools
for grade 4 mathematics, while the average for private
schools was significantly higher than the average for
public schools for grade 8 reading. The average differences
in adjusted school means for both grade 4 reading
and grade 8 mathematics were not significantly different
from zero.”

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/national/20060715report.pdf

——————————————

Another study, this one of high schools:

“Policymakers, parents, and other interested citizens often assume that private schools,
on the whole, are better academically than public schools. But is this empirical
assumption actually supported by evidence?
For the most part it is not, suggests the study of urban public and private high school students
described in this paper.”

“…To test various assumptions made in this study, another researcher, Dong Wook Jeong, performed
a series of sensitivity and replication analyses using the same group of students.
These analyses included reorganizing the data quasi-experimentally using propensity score
analysis (a statistical technique that estimates the effects of an educational “treatment” on a
group of students when the treatment was not actually done). They also included testing the
data for clustering (looking at whether the data converge around certain variables) and introducing
other non-school controls, such as the influence of peers on student achievement.
All of these analyses produced the same results as Wenglinsky’s initial analysis—namely, that
the private school effects, in most instances, could be explained by the demographics and
family characteristics of the students.”

http://www.edline.com/uploads/pdf/PrivateSchoolsReport.pdf

—————————————

There are a number of studies that compare public vs. private schools, and while private schools do indeed appear to outperform at first glance, once student variables are taken into consideration, those differences largely disappear.

You can review studies comparing private and public, and private/public charters vs. traditional public schools, etc., and you will see that public schools tend to do better or perform at similar levels, on average, vs. private schools once student variables have been accounted for.

While proponents of privatization like to claim that private schools do it for less money, at least around here, private schools cost a lot more per pupil than public schools do.

[sdduuuude]

[quote=CA renter][quote=paramount][quote=sdduuuude]

I think a voucher system would help here. Let the parents decide. Give them X dollars to spend where they like on the school and teachers of their choice and let the power of millions of people making small decisions go to work. Power to the people, baby ![/quote]

Exactly. Choice is good.

Unfortunately vouchers are a long shot primarily because tax payers have very little representation; in many states the vast majority of politicians represent public employee unions and not the tax payers.[/quote]

If parents feel so strongly about it, they can easily send their kids to private schools or they can homeschool. There is no need to subsidize private, for-profit schools with taxpayer money.[/quote]

Who said anything about private, for-profit schools?

Vouchers could pay for public schools, too. But the schools would have to be free to hire and fire teachers as needed to attract more parents to the school.

And, you conveniently ignored this question:

[quote=sdduuuude]Why couldn’t we allow the schools choose whether to hire union or non-union teachers ?
[/quote]

You say that taxpayer money funding for-profit entities (private schools) would be bad. Well, unions are for-profit organizations and public money is funding them now.

[CA renter]

We already do. Most charter schools, especially those run by private (usually for-profit) companies do not have unionized teachers. Parents do not have to pay for their children to attend these schools as they are funded by taxpayer money.

Would you like me to dig up the research comparing charter vs. traditional public schools?
…….

As for the unions being “private” orgnaizations, the bulk of that money goes to the teachers — the ones who do the actual work. With private schools, especially the for-profit charters, the teachers tend to be underpaid while the administrators and “owners” (who don’t do any of the work and, all too often, have no educational background) take a disproportionate share of the money.

I am opposed to the concentration of wealth, and I firmly believe that the people who do the work and produce the value should be the ones who benefit the most from their work.

[CA renter]

Charter vs. traditional public schools:

“As charter schools play an increasingly central role in education reform agendas across the
United States, it becomes more important to have current and comprehensible analysis about
how well they do educating their students. Thanks to progress in student data systems and
regular student achievement testing, it is possible to examine student learning in charter schools
and compare it to the experience the students would have had in the traditional public schools
(TPS) they would otherwise have attended. This report presents a longitudinal student‐level
analysis of charter school impacts on more than 70 percent of the students in charter schools in
the United States. The scope of the study makes it the first national assessment of charter
school impacts.

Charter schools are permitted to select their focus, environment and operations and wide
diversity exists across the sector. This study provides an overview that aggregates charter
schools in different ways to examine different facets of their impact on student academic
growth.

The group portrait shows wide variation in performance. The study reveals that a decent fraction
of charter schools, 17 percent, provide superior education opportunities for their students.
Nearly half of the charter schools nationwide have results that are no different from the local
public school options and over a third, 37 percent, deliver learning results that are significantly
worse than their student would have realized had they remained in traditional public schools.
These findings underlie the parallel findings of significant state‐by‐state differences in charter
school performance and in the national aggregate performance of charter schools. The policy
challenge is how to deal constructively with varying levels of performance today and into the
future.”

http://credo.stanford.edu/reports/MULTIPLE_CHOICE_CREDO.pdf

[CA renter]

Just want to point out that I have NEVER seen any evidence showing that unionized workers perform at a level that is below that of non-union workers.

If you have seen any such evidence, please post it here.

[sdduuuude]

[quote=CA renter]As for the unions being “private” orgnaizations, the bulk of that money goes to the teachers[/quote]

Without the union, then 100% of the money would go to the teachers.

[Hobie]

check mate …dude!

[CA renter]

[quote=sdduuuude][quote=CA renter]As for the unions being “private” orgnaizations, the bulk of that money goes to the teachers[/quote]

Without the union, then 100% of the money would go to the teachers.[/quote]

You couldn’t be more wrong. Without unions, the money would go to “capitalists” who “own” the system.

Look at the difference between union and non-union jobs. It’s clear that teachers lose without unions.

[njtosd]

[quote=CA renter]

You couldn’t be more wrong. Without unions, the money would go to “capitalists” who “own” the system.

[/quote]

Ok – are they not capitalists? Do they not own the system? What are the quotes for? I have to say I thought this was a post by bearishgurl. If you are not quoting someone you don’t need quotes. Rant over.

[CA renter]

[quote=njtosd][quote=CA renter]

You couldn’t be more wrong. Without unions, the money would go to “capitalists” who “own” the system.

[/quote]

Ok – are they not capitalists? Do they not own the system? What are the quotes for? I have to say I thought this was a post by bearishgurl. If you are not quoting someone you don’t need quotes. Rant over.[/quote]

Wrong.

“When do you use double quotation marks?
Use double quotation marks
Observe the following guidelines for uses of double quotation marks other than in material quoted directly from a source.

to introduce a word or phrase used as an ironic comment, as slang, or as an invented or coined expression. Use quotation marks the first time the word or phrase is used; thereafter, do not use quotation marks.

Examples:

considered “normal” behaviorthe “good-outcome” variable…the good-outcome variable [no quotation marks after the initial usage]”

http://www.apastyle.org/learn/faqs/use-double-quotes.aspx

——————-

As for why I put quotation marks around “capitalists,” it’s because too many people think that capitalists are people who own their own companies and *work* for a living. What too many people don’t realize is that capitalists can often be people who don’t do any work at all, but simply make money with money (capital). IMHO, the capitalists who work for a living, fund new companies/innovations, or who use their money to increase productive capacity or increase efficiency are true capitalists.

Those who try to get in front of market moves, or who control enough volume to change market direction/volatility and take advantage of that, are speculators. Those who try to take control of markets or distribution channels in order to force people to use whatever it is they are selling/controlling are also speculators, IMHO. These are what I would call destructive or bad speculators.

Many of the “capitalists” in private education are not workers, have no knowledge about education, have never worked in a classroom, etc. They are “investors” (and I use quotation marks there because too many people don’t know the difference between investors and speculators) who are simply looking to make a profit by *taking away choice* and forcing everyone to use a private system. As it stands right now, everyone is free to choose between a public school, publicly-funded private school, private school, or homeschool. The privatization movement is trying to shrink the number of choices available to parents and students by taking away the public options (where the workers are government employees).

For some background on the privatization of public assets and services, see this thread:

http://piggington.com/awesome_front_page_la_times_article_on_the_severe_state_pension

—————-

And no, unions do not own the system. The government owns the public education system.

[EconProf]

CA Renter: I admire your grit for staying up till 1:37 a.m. fighting the good fight for unions against capitalists, fending off your critics with mountains of quotes (from biased sources), and defending the unionized status quo in America’s public schools. I give up–yours is bigger than mine–size of evidence that is, and you have more time than all of us put together to put it on Piggington. But hang in there, we need a class warfare, capitalist vs. union advocate to explain all that is wrong with the country.

[CA renter]

By all means, EconProf, feel free to offer up your opinions and solutions. The only thing I have a problem with is totally bogus talking points taken directly from the propaganda machine of the 1%. Offer up evidence to prove your point, no matter how biased the source, as long as the data is good.

From everything I’ve seen here, those who are arguing on behalf of the capitalists are short on data and evidence, and long on lies, misinformation, and hyperbole.

Bring evidence that labor is the reason for the demise of our economy.

BTW, I don’t have to spend too much time on this because I’ve spent many years studying the topic — well before the housing bubble showed up on the radar. The information is easily found, but people first have to understand that they are being lied to by the MSM and the propaganda machine, and they have to be driven enough to learn more and seek out the truth. There is too much ignorance, apathy, and complacency in our country — something that greatly benefits those who want to privatize and take over all of our public assets and revenue streams.

[sdduuuude]

[quote=CA renter][quote=sdduuuude][quote=CA renter]As for the unions being “private” orgnaizations, the bulk of that money goes to the teachers[/quote]

Without the union, then 100% of the money would go to the teachers.[/quote]

You couldn’t be more wrong. Without unions, the money would go to “capitalists” who “own” the system.

Look at the difference between union and non-union jobs. It’s clear that teachers lose without unions.[/quote]

No. That theory only “works” when the entity hiring labor is a capitalist corp. In this case, it is the government.

So, if the government were paying non-union teachers, any money that didn’t go to the teachers would go to the taxpayers.

[CA renter]

No, it would go to other “special interests,” like developers, other agencies, etc.

Again, they have been moving toward privatization over the past few decades. They pay for the people who do the work has gone down, in general. Taxes have not gone down. What we have lost are decent jobs for American workers.

In the meantime, the “capitalists” have been reaping the rewards…like Doug Manchester, NFL owners, and their ilk. There is no way anyone can claim that Joe Sixpack has benefitted in any way from the privatization movement.

[Anonymous]

My daughter went to the best private schools for next to nothing. For the one year she was in public schools, I got to see how low your average public school has fallen. Every day I thank Dog that she didn’t have to go to public schools.

Good for me. Bad for you.

Public schools could be a lot better, but they would have to implement policies that are “politically incorrect.”

Tough shit for little Johnny. Because of Liberal educational policies, he’ll never achieve his potential.

But he CAN learn to compete with the $5/hr. help coming over the border. I still need someone to mow my lawn.
Hola, Johnny! Como esta usted?

[Author]

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