Killing Public Education by Busting Unions

Sara Jerving at The Nation:

What has become clear to the protestors over the past week is that beyond an assault on unions; Walker's bill is part of a wider attack on working families and public education.

"The second reason that this fight matters is the future of public education,” The Nation’s Chris Hayes said. “What's driving it is the ultimate aim of permanently scrapping the model of public education that has sustained this country for years. Teachers unions are the stewards of preserving public education, which is the core element of our civil life.”

At Lawyers, Guns and Money, Scott Lemieux has some interesting numbers:

My friend Ken Sherrill sends along the following note:

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.

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.”

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The union-phobes are starting to remind me of the homophobes: baseless, foaming-at-the-mouth hysterical hatred that turns out to have something far uglier behind it.