USA is a great test case. Where unions are strong, test scores are high. Massachusetts has the highest scores and the strongest unions, where unions are weak or almost non-existant, test scores are very weak. It is you guys that love those tests. I guess they prove that unions make education better.

Mr.Little, I understand that you had difficulty with high school math and science.

However, most philosophy courses that you said you were interested in contain modules on logic.

You may want to brush up on the basic concepts in logic. You may discover rules on how to build correct logical arguments. You may also discover how to use facts to correctly support your arguments from a logical point of view.

Look up “correlation” and “causation”.
They are totally different concepts.

If people like you who try to manipulate the education discussions and others who are making decisions in education understood the difference between “correlation” and “causation” we wouldn’t have the dumb, false theories as to how increasing self-esteem increases learning.

Yes, they are correlated.
However self-esteem is not the cause of better achievement.
It is actually the opposite: it is the higher achievement, resulting from hard work and training that produces self-esteem. 

Otherwise we get what we have today: quite a few students that have shaky knowlege, bad study habits, high self-esteem and high expectations and that fall on hard times as soon as they hit exams, work or college and university.

Do look up “correlation” and “causation”!
It is embarassing for a professional not to know the difference.

I am a history teacher. I teach the difference between corelation and causation. High standards cause high results. Teacher unions cause high tandards. Therefore teacher unions cause high results in a 2 step process. Try to stay with me Mr Europe. They don’t “just happen” in the same places. They are very strongly interrelated. The teachers in non-union and weak-union states are of inferior quality, lower entry standards. This is one of the major causes of weak test scores. Can you follow me or should I go through it again? You are the guy with English as a second language. You with me now?

Here’s what Professor Moe has to say regarding the claim that the highest-achieving students are generally found in the most-unionized states.

“Many, many, many, many factors influence student achievement. And to say basically that schools in the South don’t do as well as schools in the North, which is true, and that schools in the South don’t have unions and the schools in the North do, and to say, gee whiz, it must be because unions are good for schools. I - don’t try that at a university. It doesn’t wash.”

I sure guess they don’t do any damage when the highest achieving states are also the most highly unionized. Hard to make the unions are a problem case under these conditions. Finland hmmmm highly unionized.

Value-Added is a No-No for Teacher Unions

Yes, everyone in our discussions here should see this two-hour video. http://intelligencesquaredus.org/index.php/past-debates/dont-blame-teachers-unions-for-our-failing-schools/

Break it up into smaller chunks.  It?s so powerful, it left my head spinning.  Or read the 45 pg transcript here:  http://intelligencesquaredus.org/wp-content/uploads/Teachers-Unions-031610.pdf

At the end of this debate:  Don?t Blame Teachers Unions For Our Failing Schools the audience was convinced by the arguments to vote NO—that the unions ARE to blame.

To blame for what:  For making it very hard to remove incompetent teachers.  For obstacling reforms such as charter schools.  For avoiding student achievement scores in teacher assessments.  For opposing Race To The Top (RTTT) reforms and thus blocking federal funds to their states.

The concept of value-added was mentioned as that quality which teachers bring to school performance and student achievement.  That bit that teachers do above and beyond what the students bring in via socio-economic-status (SES).

The matter of value-added was not discussed (only mentioned) in the video but I thought I would bring this matter forward as it relates to the blog topic posed above:  Are Teachers? Unions Bad for Kids?

The reason I mention this is because the first two RTTT awards of US federal funds to States to improve school performances have just been announced.  They were given to Delaware and Tennessee.  Tennessee is one of the first states to begin using value-added assessments in measuring effective schools and effective teaching. 

It?s this value-added concept which is just beginning to be trashed by unions who now see another ?threat? and ?attack? on teachers.  How Tennessee got the approval of teacher unions (93%) for their application can be understood when we see that such value-added procedures have been applied, refined, and tested since 1992.

So, watch for our teacher unions to disparage value-added approaches and see this publication which doesn?t like the term, but instead would rather have:  ?context-adjusted achievement test effects? CAAT Effects !
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/12/pdf/value_added.pdf

I suspect one would have to allow for all sorts of variables before being able to draw any sort of connection between teacher unions and academic scores.

That’s a rather dubious claim by both sides of the arguments.

No doubt the same states that produce high scores and are highly unionized also spend far more on education than the others.  There’s no way of knowing what one specific part of the mix leads to higher scores.

On the Finland thing its a small country with a small population wildly reliant on one firm, Nokia, to generate an enormous amount of its national wealth so it may or may not be useful to draw much from it.

Apples to apples comparisons are often a good route to follow.

Yes, I totally agree with John’s comments and that’s exactly the point I was making earlier: correlation does not mean causation.

Malkin’s post was about how after watching a televised debate about education the number of people considering that teachers’ unions are to blame for the poor results in education increased from 43% before watching the show to 68% afterwards.

This increase in the negative sentiment towards the teachers’  union was due to the way the union representatives never answered the questions, declared one thing while the union’s actions were totally opposite.

Mr.Little lack of logic, his paternalistic bullying tone in discussions, his simplistic and impolite language is achieving the same result for me.

I didn’t use to think unions were a big part of the problem. Now I do.

Tunya, unions oppose all of those things because they are bad for education. No experts believe you can use tests designed for student evaluation, to evaluate teachers. No evidence on a model that might even be considered.

John keep trying on Finland but the OECD says you are wrong and want the rest of us to look there for a model but you know more I guess.

Hey John, I thought there was no need to spend more to get better education. Now the successful states are being accused of being successful because they spend more. Which is it?

Mr.Little, your post on how teacher’s unions are supposedly proven to be the cause for better achievement in some US states stands proof that you do not understand the difference between “causation” and “correlation”.

The fact that you were teaching these notions as a history teacher leaves me speechless.

In my opinion somebody who does not understand a concept is incompetent to teach it. 

Your reading comprehension is also lacking: John was just giving examples of other possible causes for achievement in Finland other than the teachers being unionized.

I understood exactly what you and John said. Just because you said it does not mean I agree with you, I don’t. It is facinating to listen to your circular arguments that when schools fail it is the teacher’s fault but when schools succeed it has nothing to do with the teachers it is corelation not causation. I thought you were the one that sees himself/herself as logical. What a joke.

I’ve never blamed the teacher, of course there are bad ones, but the big issue is further up the food chain.

Terry Moe on Value-Added Assessments

(From transcript of debate, March 16, 2010, pg 25, ?Don?t blame teachers unions for our failing schools? http://intelligencesquaredus.org/wp-content/uploads/Teachers-Unions-031610.pdf)

? ? basically the teachers’ unions don’t want teacher performance to be measured, and they especially don’t want any information to get out about how well teachers do.

Actually the testing technology is quite sophisticated now. And it’s possible, not just to do value-added calculations for how much kids learn during a year but also to take into account, through statistical controls, student background characteristics, how much students know at the beginning of the year so that you can control for that, and so on. And so it is certainly possible to do these things in a very systematic and rigorous and fair way.

And I think what we’re going to be leading toward eventually, unless the teachers’ unions are able to block it, is a system where we have information on teacher performance under a variety of conditions and we move towards transparency, where it is possible to let people know what teachers are good and what teachers are not good, because if teachers are not good, people should know that so that they don’t put their kids in those classrooms. It’s very important.

First of all, I have to wonder why the discussion has turned to the US, are we not in Canada?  The US cirriculum is completely different from Canada, as well as the population makeup and economics. 

The basic question “Are Teachers? Unions Bad for Kids?”, in a word YES!  With a powerful union such as the ATA there is absolutely no accountability or responsibility to the teachers.  The land owners in every province pay for the education of our children, why should they not be aware of which schools are performing well?  Even large corporations need to report their position to the shareholders! 

Teacher Unions hold our kids hostage to get whatever they want.  A pedophile can be in a classroom with our teenage daughters and cannot be removed.  A fellow teacher can be witness to a child being abused by a teacher and the code of ethics prevents them from reporting it!  Teachers unions are nothing more than bullies!  We teach our kids that if they are being bullied they need to tell someone, who do they tell when it is the teacher bullying them?  Their parents?  Good luck with that.  Just try to get in to speak with your local council, or the government, or the Teacher’s union. 

The teachers union is operated by TEACHERS!  Do you really think they will discipline their collegues?

Teachers unions serve only one purpose, to pad the pocketbooks of teachers - at the taxpayers expense.  What do the taxpayers get in return?  Underacheiving students, unaccountable teachers, and nowhere to turn for help.  A teacher could put notes on the overhead and not speak a word the entire year and get paid full rate, pension, and benefits, even tho’ 90% of the class failed!  And the following year, that useless teacher would get the standard raise that the teacher down the hall, staying until 7pm and giving up lunch breaks to help students, gets! 

I say abolish the teachers’ unions, make the teachers work for what they get, and have a student/ parent grade at the end of the year, which will affect the wage they receive the following year or if they even will have a job!

No one is incapable of learning, so if a child does not grasp the lesson, the teacher has failed to teach the child.

Mr.Little first of all you are again inconsistent: the case you were trying to make was for the teacher unions being the cause of high achievement.

Now you are changing your argument to be about the teachers being the cause of high achievement.
Teacher unions and teachers are different things!

I am in total agreement with you that the teachers - and the teaching methods they use - are the most important factor in students achievement.

Where we differ is in our definition of a teacher.
Your definition is:
Teacher = somebody who went to teacher’s college and got a certificate at some point in their lives.

My definition is:
Teacher = somebody who has knowledge about a subject and about the methods to teach it so that it can produce increased knowledge in his students.

When certified teachers in public schools don’t teach - that is don’t manage to trigger increased knowledge in their students - that’s when achivement as measured by test scores begins to have other causes:

- the everyday teaching parents do in the home

- the tutoring that the parents pay for

- the school choices parents are able to make due to what area they can buy their house in or due to their ability to navigate in the education system

All of the above are linked to the socio-economic status of the parents.

This socio-economic status gives the parents the ability to either:
- be teachers themselves (that is increase knowledge in their children)
- buy good teachers by paying for tuturing services
- buy good teachers by being able to choose from existing schools

So, yes, if definitely does come down to teachers - a teacher being a person who has the knowledge and the skills to increase knowledge in their students.

Sure Mr Europe,

And any parent who attends to their sick child is a doctor, and any person off the street who give legal advice is a lawyer, and people who give their kids aspirin are pharmasists, and people who design their own dog house are architects, no problem

Your argument is an insult to teachers everywhere. Don’t worry, every idiot thinks anyone can teach until they actually do it.

And there lies the rub and the unions biggest fear of homeschooling and private schools, jobs.

First the remedial plan could certainly be taught to small groups by a motivated parent(s), we are proof of that. As well as properly trained EA’s could also teach the same remedial plan in small groups within the school.

The teachers don’t lose their jobs in fact some must over see the remedial plans and the rest are now ?free to teach? as the student actually has the skills to understand in a classroom setting.

The union is just one symptom of the overall disease.
Ego is the cancer.
Doug is a prime example of this…closed mind, ego issues that just drip of the ?I’m right and you’re stupid? attitude.

Times are changing, with the internet parents today are smart and have resources like never before. They expect results and will not wait for the system to change.
The teachers and their union will be forced to make the hard decision to be the leaders in this change or the victims of it.

Keep dreaming Mark.

So Doug are you saying that your teachers can not train a literate adult to teach Stairway to Reading to small groups of say 1 to 3 children?

Hey you’re the guy with all the stats….Just a couple quick questions please.

What is the percentage of teachers who are past the minimum retirement age? How about 5 years past and more?

How many unemployed teaching grads are there in Ontario?

The law changed, there is no minimum retirement age, maximum either. There is no connection between age and quality but their is a relationship between experience and quality, experience is better.

Canadians have been asked over and over if they want certified teachers or uncertified. Guess what, they wantcertified. Even with the recent ELP situation in Ontario, 80% said they preferred teachers over ECE.

And the first question?

Anybody can teach anybody anything. My dad taught me how to box. They just cannot do it as well as a certified teacher.

So my daughter was in grade 5 with an IEP, all we were told is she scored slightly below average on the IQ test, we jumped through EVERY hoop. She couldn’t read past the first sentence in the Stairway to reading diagnostic.
Math skills at about SK level, first day of JUMP Math she blistered her eyelid so bad it looked like she was bleeding from her eye.

My boy is one of the “bone lazy” kids, grade three and was at about the same level and going in the same direction as the girl.
My kids were not the only ones, there were at least 5 of these kids in each of their grades .....So in a school of 120 kids, that’s averaging out right at that 40% failure rate.

So is this your idea of quality education?
Is this acceptable?
Is this the best you can do?

Why did your father see the need to teach you how to fight? Bully issues?
My son had those as well.

It is interesting when people do one on one tutorials with their own children and they learn something, they wonder why the teacher couldn’t do it themselves. Because s/he has at least 20 and there will never ever be the time that one on one can provide. Your figures are way off on failure rates.

Just try to do better some time. There are a lot of big talkers around who are not teachers but need to go to bed early after a kids B-day party. Most people know that they could never even control a group of 20 kids for a day let alone teach them anything.

Canada, no matter how you measure, is one of the top systems in the world. The fact that your son is bone lazy is on you, not the teacher.

Doug, you seem to have all the answers when defending teachers.  Answer this one please.

When my son was in grade 2&3 in public school, I was told that he didn’t comprehend, could barely read beyond a grade on level and had difficulties with fine motor skills.  I had a difficult time grasping this as he can tell me every detail of an AK 47 and a sherman tank.  He drew elaborate battle pictures etc.  I requested that the school test him which they did.  The result was that he was at the top of the comprehension scale, above his age level, but at grade level in all other instances (he is the youngest child in his class).  He was seeing an external tutor whom I hired and by January in grade 2 he had completed the Dolch grade 3 site phrases with her.  Yes, one on one was beneficial for him, yet in grade 3 the teacher still spoke of how he was underacheiving.  I begged the teachers to speak directly with the tutor, which they assured me they would, but never contacted her or returned her phone calls.  After much frustration and my son infoming me that he was the ‘weakest student in the class’ I decided I had had enough of public school!  I have put both my boys into the catholic system.  My oldest son, now in grade 4 is bringing home nothing less than 76%.  Tell me, if all teachers are so brilliant and hard working, why are his marks so much better in the catholic system than in the public?  Keep in mind that he has not been to his tutor once since the change to catholic. I requested the catholic school test him at the beginning of grade 4 as I thought remedial help may be in order.  The test results “No remedial help is necessary”!  Why is this?  Public wanted him in ‘Strategies’ - call it what you will, it is still remedial help. 

Please enlighten me Doug.

The results of the catholic system are about the same as the public system, in fact for many many years the results were not as good. They seem to have just caught up to the public system in recent years.

Not what I would consider an answer.  I am not an isolated case, I know over 40 families that have had the same experience.  However, you believe that my son’s grade 2& 3 teachers deserve the same wage as his grade 4 teacher, even tho’ I was paying out of my own pocket for a tutor to do the teachers’ job in grade 2 & 3!  How do you justify that?

Funny how class size is not an issue in other countries!

Teachers - someone who is able to increase their students knowledge - in other countries are able to teach classes of 25 to 30 students or even 40 to 45.

Go to a Kumon center, are the groups small?

If someone does not know the subject and the methods of teaching it effectively - for example quite a few elementary grade teachers teaching math - they have no chance at all of teaching well even if they teach in small groups.

The issue is not small groups and class sizes.
If it were, special ed and remedial reading would work well. They aren’t.

Why isn’t special ed working?
Why aren’t programs that are supposed to help with reading working?

Could it be the teaching methods?
Could it be the quality of the teaching?

I think you are aware how teachers are paid. It is very common in the entire education system for kids to have difficult years and later do very well, I have seen it myself many times. It often has to do with family or personal issues for a period of time.

On class sizes, all significant research shows the relationship between smaller classes and higher achievement. The Koreans have finally been able to afford to slash class sizes and have shot ahead.

With Special Ed, of course you are already dealing with children who have learning problems. Put the same kid in a large class without support and they do even worse.

No it is not the methods or the training. I love the opinions of outsiders on this stuff. Just actually try it some time and see just how easy it is. If you are not a teacher you just simply do not know what you are talking about.

Class size is not an issue with my son’s improvement this year!  His current class has a size of 22 where the previous two, where I told he was experiencing difficulties was 17-19!  My son is in a larger class size than other years, with no remedial help and is doing much better than previous years!  So I do not believe that class size matters!

I think this answers Europe’s questions:
It IS teaching methods
It IS the quality of teaching that makes the difference.  The teachers that provide this quality and spend the time implementing alternative methods are most certainly worth more money than others!  Teachers unions do not support this, nor do they provide discipline to those teachers who do not make the grade!

You sound like the typical parent who has not read a single piece of research (as opposed to the ones who have) and does the my son, my daughter my child stuff over and over. It is research that matters and it shows that class size matters. It is the number 2 factor after teacher education. Your opinion doesn’t matter, research matters.

Actually the research shows that kids tend to better in very small classes relative to very large ones.  Minor differences in class size have minimal impact.  Put another way nothing happens in a class of 20 that isn’t every bit as possible in a class of 21 or 22.

I suspect that the issue of “people who read research” is mostly dependent on the quality of research being read.  There are some people who only find “research” that perpetuates what they already think and dismiss anything that doesn’t.
Its all about context.

Yes, very small classes are best, but hard to afford so our policy must be to drop the class sizes by say one child per class per year until we have very small classes like the Tennessee STAR research which showed big results at 18 and down.

I’m always very happy when conservative types campaign against increased spending, lower class sizes, more teachers because, like the OISE research shows, they are on the wrong side of public opinion and it will hurt them electorally. Stick with it though guys, I would be disappointed if you changed your mind.

Project STAR defined small classes as 13-17, and the small classes in the study averaged just under 15 students.
http://www.heros-inc.org/summary.pdf

Yes I agree, and I’m very happy to have your support Malkin, as we continue to press towards the day when all classes will be under 18. If we stick with it and keep cutting class sizes, we will get there soon, at least in primary and then we can work up the ladder to grade 12.

None of the parties, including the Liberals, are on the record as pushing for classes of 17 kids.

As we all know the Project STAR work was done in Tennessee, one of the “southern states”  we’re told, by one of our our more prolific commentators, is a sort of educational backwater.  As he’s pointed out on occassion the Canadian situation and the American situation are very different.

You do understand that the STAR study was using a reduction or 23:1 down to 16:1 as a planning model, right?

As was stated several times that doesn’t say much about the impact of minor reductions in class size, as was mostly the case with McGuinty’s magical “cap of 20” project.

Run the numbers for a “big” class of 21 or 22 kids and a “small” class of 20 kids and report back.

It appears studies done in vastly different environments in the U.S. may or may not be applicable to Ontario and Canada at some times and in some ways or maybe not…

Apples-to-apples comparisons are always so much more compelling, right?

Spoken with true teacher ego!  It is apparent that my opinion is shared with researchers and therefore DOES matter!

http://www.cdhowe.org/pdf/commentary_215.pdf
and
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-02/uocp-dcs022808.php

Both links state that the effects of class size are minimal and that the largest effect of class size is on the teachers’ attitudes! 

I think you have substantiated this very well.  It is truly frightening that you are alone with young minds.  With the disrespect you have displayed to others on this site, it is frightening to think how you are capable of treating the students behind closed doors!

Teachers Unions defend and fight for teachers’ rights.  Who fights for the Parents and Students rights?  If it were not for the parents and students, there would be NO teaching jobs!  So why do teachers believe they deserve more than the students?  Since when is the education system about the teachers and NOT the students?  Letters behind ones’ name or a certificate on a wall does not make an individual a Professional!  Attitude, devotion, dedication, accountability, responsibility and grace DOES. 

“When a teacher leaves a student behind, it is almost always because they have not taken responsibility for examining the way they teach.  I often make mistakes in my lessons: sometimes I will go too fast for a student or skip steps inadvertently.  I don’t consider myself a natural teacher.  I know many teachers who are more charismatic or faster on their feet than I am.  But I have had enormous success with students who were thought to be unteachable because if I happen to leave a student behind I will always ask myself: What did I do wrong in that lesson?” John Mighton

If the teacher does not have knowledge of the subject he teaches, class size is not going to make a substantial difference.

If the teacher does not know how or thinks it “destroys creativity” to break new knowlege down into steps ....
if the teacher does not know how to give feedback and correct misunderstandings ...
if the teacher doesn’t ask his students to practice until the new knowledge is automatic

then class size is not going to matter.

That teacher would not be able to teach anyone even if he was working one on one.

I love John Mighton’s books and I think his methods are solid. I think he is an extremely courageous and patient person.

However to me it is a bit like re-inventing the wheel, re-descovering the past.

Maybe this kind of teaching has been forgotten here but that’s how I was taught math, english and all the other subjects: in logical, carefully thought out steps.
Then all the students have a chance to be good if they work at it regardless of the socio-economic status of their parents!

That’s how children are being taught now in other countries.

Low class sizes mean the teacher has more time with each student. This results in learning gains. It is widely accepted in education that smaller is better. You go ahead and fight it if you want. Progressives will continue to push for the lowest class sizes possible and the parents will side with us. As you could see in the OISE poll, small classes are very popular, 72% want smaller classes. Keep digging that deeper hole for conservatives. Love it.

For those nostalgia buffs like Mr Europe, every decade we go back in time, the dropout rate was higher. Some conservative love the 1950’s, before those terrible 60s undermined authority. The dropout rate was terrible then.

The OISE survey also showed overwhelming support for provincewide testing.  In that event, we’re told, that’s because the public don’t have enough education on the issue to know the right answer.

LOL; the phrase “trying to suck and blow at the same time” comes to mind.

Yes the OISE report showed majority (not overwhelming) support for testing, it also showed that a significant number of supporters thought it probably didn’t make any difference. I have never tried to pretend that it was not a majority. We will all keep working to pull it down by pointing out the obvious fact that it increases the dropout rate, narrows the curriculum, and does nothing to improve education while costing a great deal of money. NCLB the American test and punish ststem you all love is now seen in the USA as a massive failure because after 15 years of it, there has been no improvement whatsoever according to the NAEP test. We just have to keep pointing to EQAO as an expensive and political failure.