Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Jersey Jazzman: Why Shouldn't Teachers Fight For Their Interests?

Jersey Jazzman: Why Shouldn't Teachers Fight For Their Interests?:


Why Shouldn't Teachers Fight For Their Interests?

Michael Petrilli, head frat boy at the Fordham Institute's blog, Flypaper, decided that this headline for a recent post was in good taste:

What’s more powerful than Hurricane Sandy? Hurricane Randi!




Randi being, of course, American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten. Yeah, I'm finding that so super funny, especially after waiting two hours in line for a can of gas...

The post goes on to take a gratuitous swipe at Diane Ravitch for daring to point out that there is no correlation between union strength and student achievement. Petrilli's post is based on a new report from Fordham, funded by the reformy folks at Democrats For Education Reform, that "ranks" union strength around the country.

After a cursory look, I can confidently report that this study is rather silly. The love these people have for ordinal numbers is, frankly, bizarre: when they're not ranking states and countries, or cheering the ranking of teachers