The Homa Files

Yesterday’s post “Maybe Wisconsin kids are better off with their teachers protesting” seems to have struck a nerve.

From a reader:

“According to your statistics, Wisconsin teachers are 4% better than the nationwide average.  Which is admittedly pretty poor, but I don’t understand why you are attempting to portray them negatively when they in fact appear to be above average.  Also, can we stop ignoring the fact that the teachers are protesting largely in response to the attempt to take away their collective bargaining rights? Education reform is a hugely complicated issue and I fail to see how demonizing a whole states-worth of individuals who spend more time with kids than many parents do is going to make the situation better.”

Here’s my open reply:

First, the Wisconsin teachers are doing a nice job demonizing themselves — by cutting classes and getting fake excuse notes from doctors.  Would that conduct be tolerated from students?  It certainly wouldn’t be tolerated by private companies – employees would be terminated in a heartbeat.  Which, I guess, is why the teachers need collective bargaining – to protect their irresponsible behavior.

Second, it makes me cringe to see anybody doing victory laps over 32% of eighth graders being proficient in reading …  I don’t think that  4% better than the national average is compelling.  Why?

• The national average includes education juggernauts like Mississippi.
• The students to teacher ratio in Wisconsin (14.7) is lower that the U.S. average (15.99). http://teacherportal.com/salary/Wisconsin-teacher-salary
• Wisconsin has what some people might consider “favorable demographics” that, in themselves, probably explain any differences between Wisconsin and the U.S. average.  See http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/55000.html and draw your own conclusion.

The bottom line: about two out of three Wisconsin eighth graders don’t read proficiently. Ouch.

Time for teachers in Wisconsin – and every place else –  to step up and take responsibility … or at least get a fake note from a roving doctor.

This entry was posted on February 25, 2011 at 6:50 am and is filed under Education - Academics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.