Comments on: Short Course on Some Origins of Inequality

By: Maryland Conservatarian

Maryland Conservatarian — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 19:51:23 +0000

…with all due respect to the Indy professor, it is nonsensical to imagine students responding better to a teacher simply because said teacher pays dues to an organization whose main purpose seems to be electing a Democratic hegemony. It strains the imagination to picture my local Baltimore City schools as being even worse off, save for the inspirational presence of union teachers.

Yes, I know Ms. Godsil didn’t mention “teacher’s unions”…neither did Mr. Pasquale…my point is simply that improvements to charter schools such as “guaranteeing health care for all teachers in them” will never get out of a Democratic Congress because the teachers’ unions simply will not allow it…unless we’re in a brave new world where Dems don’t march to the unions beat or the unions aren’t in it first and formost for themselves.

By: Joseph Slater

Joseph Slater — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 00:58:13 +0000

Prof. Godsil did not mention “teachers unions” and in fact, despite right-wing rhetoric to the contrary, unionization of teachers is, if anything, good for student performance.

Indiana University’s Robert M. Carini analyzed 17 “prominent studies” that examined the link between teacher unions and student achievement. His conclusion? “Unionism raises achievement modestly for most students in public schools.”

Specifically, Carini reported that students with unionized teachers scored higher on standardized tests and were more likely to graduate from high school. See Steelman Powell and Carini, “Do Teacher Unions Hinder Educational Performance? Lessons Learned from State SAT and ACT Scores. Harvard Education Review, Winter 2000.

By: Maryland Conservatarian

Maryland Conservatarian — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 23:21:02 +0000

Ms. Godsil is correct and one of the ways charters can differ is in not using union teachers. Hence my belief that anything that can possibly make teaching in a charter school more attractive will simply not fly with those unions…meaning it’ll never fly with Congressional Dems.

By: Rachel Godsil

Rachel Godsil — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 20:30:41 +0000

Just a clarification, charter schools are in fact public schools. They take different forms in different jurisdictions, but they differ from traditional public schools by being exempt from many of the regulations/obligations placed upon traditional public schools. Often people are confused about the difference between charter schools and “voucher” schools — the latter are purely private, sometimes religiously affiliated, schools that parents can use government “vouchers” to pay for.

By: Haninah

Haninah — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 16:24:37 +0000

A great post, as always. Regarding the NYTimes article about the Hart and Risley study, though, it’s probably worth pointing out that that study was conducted with a sample size of only 6 families, and is apparently considered in the business to be a good preliminary study rather than a conclusive one. See a recent post at another very respected academic blog – UPenn’s Language Log: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003831.html, scroll down about halfway down.

By the way, for those interested in the gender-in-education issue, Language Log has also had a very interesting long-running series about popular myths concerning the science of gender differences in language and education.

Haninah

By: Maryland Conservatarian

Maryland Conservatarian — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 05:32:09 +0000

“Perhaps the Bush Administration should signal a commitment to charter schools by guaranteeing health care for all teachers in them.”

yeah, that’s gonna fly with the teachers’ unions

By: Maryland Conservatarian

Maryland Conservatarian — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 05:31:45 +0000

“Perhaps the Bush Administration should signal a commitment to charter schools by guaranteeing health care for all teachers in them.”

yeah, that’s gonna fly with the teacher’s unions

By: Rachel Godsil

Rachel Godsil — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 00:25:57 +0000

Fabulous post, Frank. Thanks for drawing attention to this critically important issue.