Astroturfed Union Talking Points On Collective Bargaining And ACT Scores

On my Facebook page, a well-meaning connection dropped this little nugget into his comment stream.

Only 5 states do not have collective bargaining for educators and have deemed it illegal. Their ranking on ACT/SAT scores:

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

Wisconsin is currently ranked 2nd. Welcome to the race to the bottom.

It's an interesting piece, because it's all over the internet in a Google Search.  There is no citation for the piece, and the comments are left mostly byanonymous users at hundreds of newssites and comment sections covering the union strike in Wisconsin.

This is astroturf at its finest.  A low-paid intern or first year employee cutting and pasting a talking point into comment sections as they register, too lazy to change it up, and too rushed to bother creating real profiles to post from.

The tipoff for me was the use of educators.  The use of the word "educators" instead of teachers is a code word meant to make you think of the word educate, which is so much sexier than teaching. 

The problem is the "statistic," no matter where it came from, is bunk.  Focusing on the students who took the ACT/SAT doesn't cover the whole educational picture.  It covers those most likely to graduate across a state (knowing full well that school districts within a state, and even a city, vary wildly).  It doesn't touch on dropout rates at all. 

 Let's look at those dropout rates by county, instead of by state, and see what we get.  Here is a list from 2006 in USA TODAY.

The top five counties for graduation rate include one in VA, one in NC, two in Maryland, and one in Texas.

The bottom five counties for graduation rate are Detroit, Baltimore, New York, Milwaukee, and Cleveland.

3 out of 5 of the top are in states without collective bargaining.  5 out of 5 states at the bottom have collective bargaining and fail their students.  Milwaukee, in Wisconsin, has a graduation rate of lower than 50%.  Care to explain how collective bargaining is helping educators there?

Let's not make the same mistake of the astroturfed teacher's union commenters.  The dropout rate, even by county, has a lot more to do with living conditions in big cities, money available for the schools, city, state, and local governance, and yes, even how states track and present their data.  It's not an effective way to argue for collective bargaining in either direction to point to SAT scores or dropout rates, especially 90% of the states use collective bargaining.

But you do have to wonder who paid for this astroturf.  Who is attempting to poison the debate about the power and influence of teacher's unions in such a manner?  Why are they afraid of the truth?  It doesn't seem like the type of thing someone confident in their teaching abilities would offer up to the public at large.  It seems more like power politics with a heavy whiff of propaganda, intended to denigrate those who support the Wisconsin governor by calling them stupid.

Too bad I caught them.  Call it the benefit of a Texas public school education.

Comments

[Karissa Williams]

The bottom five counties for graduation rate are Detroit, Baltimore, New York, Milwaukee, and Cleveland.

NONE of these are counties. They are cities within counties. Detroit, for instance, is in Wayne County, and there are school districts other than Detroit Public Schools therein. Not disputing your stats, just saying that you need to compare apples to apples, not favorable stats to unfavorable ones. Be VERY careful...just like you are demanding the collective bargaining vs. ACT/SAT scores fact checker be...OK?

[Ryan Hogan]

i found the source on goole, it was the first one to come up. Perhaps the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law is a made up University with imaginary students.

Wow, counties with inner city schools have the lowest graduation rates. Big surprise, how does this prove your point? You can try to manipulate the data to make your point, that doesn't mean you're right.

[Fred]

You need to update your facts. the 2010 numbers are available

You'll find the 2010 SAT scores at: http://www.commonwealthfoundation.org/policyblog/detail/2010-sat-scores-by-state
while the 2010 ACT scores by state can be found at: http://www.act.org/news/data/10/states.html

And the bottom 5 are states (and the District of Columbia)that have collective bargaining...suggest a public correction!

[Editor]

You're missing the point, Fred.

One, the use of SAT scores isn't valid, as we discussed above. If you're going to cherry pick SAT ratings, I'll cherry pick dropout rates.

But even the SAT scores aren't accurate. The reason the anonymous commenters weren't citing the source is because it wasn't valid. That chart becomes significantly different when you compare it to percentage of students taking the SAT.

When you click the tab for the high participation by states, Wisconsin isn't listed.

Which proves the point - this was astroturfed commenting by someone trying to make others look stupid.

[Robin]

Texas has the biggest deficit of any state in the nation. Reckon that proves outlawing collective bargaining don't help a state balance its budget.

p.s., I dare you to not delete this comment.

[too many taxes]

Dropout rates, SAT & ACT scores are smoke & mirrors due to all the attention public sector union problems have received as front & center issues. Tax payers are waking up to the scam & the unions are scared. It's about time!