I think this makes my point...

So the states with the lowest ranking on college entrance exams are the ones that busted their teachers unions. Go figure.



What About Education Reform? Ctd:
from The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan 

"Ken Sherrill counters those, like Adam Ozimek, who worry about public sector unions impeding education reform:




Only 5 states do not have collective bargaining for educators and have deemed it illegal. Those states and their ranking on ACT/SAT scores are as follows:

South Carolina – 50th
North Carolina – 49th
Georgia – 48th
Texas – 47th
Virginia – 44th

If you are wondering, Wisconsin, with its collective bargaining for teachers, is ranked 2nd in the country. Let’s keep it that way.


Scott Lemieux adds:


This isn’t to say that the lack of collective bargaining explains these poor outcomes, of course, but it is true that the evidence that breaking teacher’s unions improves educational outcomes is somewhere between “exceptionally weak” and “non-existent.”


Matt Steinglass nods."

OK, maybe too far in that last post

Matt has some good points below on education reform. They basically run counter to "it doesn't work argument implicit in my last post. Let me be clear, education is a priority and I am for more flexibility and experimentation to figure out ways to make things work better. I just want the teacher unions brought into the process. Change should NOT be positioned as an assault on teachers. We need good teachers. Attacking their unions and lowering their compensation is detrimental to attracting good teachers. It's not only bad policy.

 It's just wrong.

:from Matthew Yglesias

"

(cc photo by kevindooley)

Kevin Drum is an education reform skeptic:

More importantly, though, I’ve simply become less convinced about the value of all the ed reforms that periodically capture the hearts of the Beltway chattering classes. I’m generally in favor of things like charter schools and disciplinary reforms that make it slightly easier to fire bad teachers, but even if they’re worthwhile on their own merits there’s not an awful lot of evidence that these things actually improve the overall quality of the educational system. It’s not that there’s no evidence to support these kinds of reforms, just that the evidence is thin and contradictory every time I look at it. Test scores haven’t dropped over the past 30 years. Other countries largely haven’t leapfrogged us during the same period. High-stakes testing doesn’t appear to have a big impact. Charter schools aren’t unquestionably superior to equivalent public schools. Merit pay might work but it might not. The presence or absence of teachers unions doesn’t seem to have much effect on educational outcomes. For more on this, try reading Joanne Barken’s contrarian take on the ed reform community in the winter issue of Dissent.

I think this is overstated, but the deeper issue for teacher’s unions is that pushing this kind of line is ultimately self-defeating. Say it’s true that we don’t know how to make schools better. That could be for two reasons. One is that it’s an epistemological problem—we have no idea what makes a school effective. Another is that it’s impossible—learning outcomes are all about parenting and schools are irrelevant. Either conclusion makes the sense for less investment in education and more decentralization of the system. If we had really convincing research that teachers who wear green hats produce better learning outcomes, then unions would swiftly reach an agreement to incentive the wearing of green hats and there’d be no problem. But that’s not the case.

So Scott Walker and his odious partisan gambit aside, you’re still left with a strong case for reform. I think the evidence is pretty clear that school quality does matter and that there are measurable differences in teacher performance. That’s why I think it makes sense to invest in good schools through charter school “smart caps” (see Erin Dillon) and invest in good teachers by paying generous salaries and getting rid of the teachers who don’t perform (see Robin Chait). But the kind of “it’s all about poverty” edu-nihilism that’s often the most convincing argument for skepticism about the merits of reform simply makes the case for across the board disinvestment in educating children. If that’s what you think, that’s what you think, but obviously it’s not a position that teacher’s unions are going to like either."

The solutions are broken

Excellent piece from Kevin Drum that touches on a few of my pet issues with all the talk of 'fixing' education. The solutions haven't worked (See Kevin's piece below).

This isn't to say we should be trying to reform and improve education, but the answer can't be "Let's only try things that break the teachers union". That's the type of policy that I see the GOP favoring, evidence be damned (as usual). And that brings me back to Walker. I think I can say that we all agree that education in today's world is about the only path to success. And that we, as a country, need to make education a point of emphasis if we want the country to remain economically competitive. (I only think I can say this because sometimes I'm not so sure that GOPs fundraisers really believe this).

So does it make sense slash incentives for the best and brightest to become teachers? How does making teachers take a huge cut in compensation help our long term growth? Does taking away collective bargaining rights from teachers make Wisconsin a more attractive place to be a teacher? Is this move going to improve our kids test scores because we have better teacher in the classroom?

Answers: No, It doesn't, It doesn't, and No. It only means that taxes can be lower.

This whole thing is BS.



Is Wisconsin Really About the Kids?:
from Kevin Drum


"Mike Konczal points to this as the most interesting passage from Wisconson Gov. Scott Walker's telephone conversation with the fake David Koch:


I had all my cabinet over to the residence for dinner. Talked about what we were going to do, how we were going to do it, we had already kind of doped plans up, but it was kind of a last hurrah, before we dropped the bomb and I stood up and I pulled out a, a picture of Ronald Reagan and I said you know this may seem a little melodramatic but ... when he fired the air traffic controllers and, I said, to me that moment was more important than just for labor relations and or even the federal budget, that was the first crack in the Berlin Wall and the fall of Communism because from that point forward the soviets and the communists knew that Ronald Regan wasn’t a pushover....


Mike comments:


When the true believers get together and talk openly, they don’t talk about this being about the budget, or getting innovative school practices in place, or whatever. It’s about showing their enemies that they mean business and aren’t pushovers. He believes that by smashing one you can smash them all. And he believes he is the first domino to move.


Quite so. Which brings to mind the pro-Walker argument currently making the rounds over at Modeled Behavior: namely that, as Karl Smith puts it, 'to the extent public sector unions matter at all, it's because they stand in the way of educational reform.' Adam Ozimek expands on this a bit:


Do I really have to run down the litany of bad policies unions have fought to keep, and good policies they’ve fought against in education reform? A clear indicator of how bad they’ve been is that the most anyone will say in their defense on education reform is that “well, some unions are embracing reform now in some places!”


I think I would have been more open to this argument a year or two ago, but I'm less sure now. First, because it's obvious that guys like Walker couldn't care less about ed reforms. As Mike says, in private Walker makes it clear that his union busting efforts are mostly designed to show that he's a tough guy, not to hasten ed reforms that will help Wisconsin's kids.

More importantly, though, I've simply become less convinced about the value of all the ed reforms that periodically capture the hearts of the Beltway chattering classes. I'm generally in favor of things like charter schools and disciplinary reforms that make it slightly easier to fire bad teachers, but even if they're worthwhile on their own merits there's not an awful lot of evidence that these things actually improve the overall quality of the educational system. It's not that there's no evidence to support these kinds of reforms, just that the evidence is thin and contradictory every time I look at it. Test scores haven't dropped over the past 30 years. Other countries largely haven't leapfrogged us during the same period. High-stakes testing doesn't appear to have a big impact. Charter schools aren't unquestionably superior to equivalent public schools. Merit pay might work but it might not. The presence or absence of teachers unions doesn't seem to have much effect on educational outcomes. For more on this, try reading Joanne Barken's contrarian take on the ed reform community in the winter issue of Dissent.

I'm not trying to stake out some kind of maximal position here. There is some evidence in favor of some of these reforms, and I support the idea of experimenting to find out what works and what doesn't. I'd also like to see teachers unions lighten up on some of this stuff, so to some extent I agree with Karl and Adam. Still, the overall evidence that teachers unions are our biggest impediment to a nation of young geniuses is pretty weak. If that's your main reason to oppose public sector unions, I think you probably need a better case."

Anybody want to make a wager?

I'm betting on a shutdown.

Now last year I was willing to bet that Palin had a shot at getting the GOP nomination. I'm not entirely out of the money on that one (but the Alaska show and the recent AZ tragedy are not helping her cause); but clearly, I sometimes find myself of the belief that the GOP base is crazier than perhaps it really is. But the evidence is building on this one. The GOP base seems like it wants this very badly and the GOP Freshman are definitely in for the ride. GOP leadership sometimes appears concerned, but I believe they actually want this too.

I'm not willing to bet on who 'wins' from a shutdown. Independent voters freak me out.




Did John Boehner accidentally make a shutdown more likely?:
from Ezra Klein

"
boehnershutdown.JPG


John Boehner got some plaudits -- including from me -- for permitting an open amendment process on the House spending bill. But as Jon Bernstein notes, that process may have had the unintended consequence of making a government shutdown much more likely:


When Republicans brought the funding bill to the House floor, Boehner allowed for the introduction of hundreds of amendments, instead of following the usual procedure of having the House Rules Committee screen out most amendments. For Republican members of the House, it was a great opportunity to fulfill campaign promises by authoring amendments, many of which were approved, on all sorts of policy issues. Indeed, instead of just raising or lowering spending levels for federal agencies, these amendments prohibit the government from using any funds to carry out laws that House Republicans don’t like. So, for example, the funding bill now tells the EPA that it cannot regulate greenhouse gases; it tells the FCC that it may not implement net-neutrality regulations; it cuts funding from Planned Parenthood; and, perhaps most critically, it blocks money needed to carry out health-care reform.


This means that, instead of sending the Senate a bill carefully tailored for a major budget fight, the House has delivered one containing a hodgepodge of policy fights. Consequently, it will be much harder to find common ground before time runs out to prevent a shutdown.


If the only question was about funding levels, which was always expected to be a battleground, then it’s doubtful a compromise would’ve been impossible. The budget debate might have gone to the brink, maybe even shutting the government down for a few days before a deal was reached. In theory, however, it’s just not that difficult to cut a deal between one side that wants X dollars and another side that wants Y dollars spent on, more or less, the same set of programs ... But, when it comes to the policy fights over health care reform, environmental regulations, Planned Parenthood, and other issues, there aren’t partial victories available. Democrats won’t give in, and House Republicans won’t either, at least not easily. To take just one example: If you’re a Republican congressman, once you’ve said that allowing funds to go to Planned Parenthood is basically just funding abortion (even if it’s not), how do you reconcile a “yes” vote on a compromise bill that allows funding for that organization?


Photo credit: By Alex Brandon/Associated Press"

Early Election Signs...

Scott Walker is giving me hope the GOP can be stopped in 2012 from re-taking the senate (the piece below refers to the 2012 Presidential race). The way this has played out so far makes me think of how Hurricane Katrina forced the country to look at the GOPs warts. It's earlier in the cycle, so the media narrative has plenty of time to shift several times. But the events have become so significant that it's hard to believe that a GOP distraction campaign will be completely effective.

Then again, the triumvir-ant of Beck, Palin, and Limbaugh - TV, Internet, Radio - will continue to be very loud.


"How Does It Play In Oshkosh?":
from The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

"Rhodes Cook thinks the Wisconsin union fight could influence the 2012 race:


Of Wisconsin’s 72 counties, both Obama and Walker swept 59 in their respective races – 46 of which were won by both candidates. Each carried most of rural Wisconsin as well as the bulk of longtime manufacturing centers, including the counties that include Green Bay, Racine, Kenosha, Manitowoc, and yes, Oshkosh. Which party wins these swing counties and constituency groups in 2012 – not only in Wisconsin, but also the whole swath of Rust Belt terrain “from Scranton to Oshkosh” – could be significantly affected by the outcome of the current Republican-labor showdown in Madison."