> Date sent: Tue, 10 Sep 1996 14:17:33 -0700 (PDT)
> Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> From: Jim Westrich <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: Multiple recipients of list <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: [PEN-L:6096] Future Nobel laureate
>
> >From the Wall Street Journal, Sept. 10th, *Work Week* column,
>
> TEACHERS' UNIONS hamper student achievement, a new study argues.
>
> School districts with teachers' unions have higher dropout rates, a study
> just published by the Quarterly Journal of Economics says. Caroline Hoxby,
> an assistant professor of economics at Harvard University, analyzed the
> high-school dropout rates at more than 10,000 school districts before and
> after they were unionized between 1970 and 1990, and discovered that
> districts had higher dropout rates after unionization. The study may help
> solve the mystery of why increasing school spending often has no effect on
> student achievement, says Larry Katz, the journal's editor.
>
> Once unionization's effects are controlled, measures such as raising teacher
> salaries seem to improve student achievement, Ms. Hoxby says. Nonunionized
> schools may be targeting spending more, she says, increasing entering
> teachers' pay rather than of all teachers uniformly. But the National
> Education Association calls the study, "hogwash," saying it is ridiculous to
> measure achievement only by dropout rates.
>
> Other smaller-scale studies show that unionization has slight positive
> effects, says Morris Kleiner, a University of Minnesota professor, including
> one that compared test scores of children in unionized and nonunionized
> districts.
>
>
>
> Jim Westrich
> Institute on Disability and Human Development
> University of Illinois at Chicago
>
> "Rags, old iron; all he was buying were rags and old iron."
>
RESPONSE:
I plan to use this one as a perfect example of the post hoc and
correlation equals causation fallacies. Perhaps the causality runs
this way:
feudal/fascist ----->increased need for a union\
administrators \ correlation
\ /
\----->increased spending--->higher dropout rates
on big offices/perks
decreased spending
on stimulating and
relevant educational
programs
Both increased unionization and higher dropout rates are dependent
variables and a function of overpaid, underworked, megalomaniacal,
narcissistic, uninspired and uninspiring feudal/fascist
administrators who create the climate that leads to both the need for
increased unionization and higher dropout rates.
Jim Craven
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