Texas vs Wisconsin in education

[august948]

Ran across this analysis and rebuttal of comments by Paul Krugman regarding the state of education in Texas.

http://iowahawk.type...-badgers-1.html

I got to this article by way of Tory Gattis' blog on the chron, which has some other interesting nuggets.

http://blogs.chron.c...ity+Urbanist%29

Here's an excerpt of the first part. There's another post on the same subject that follows this one on the iowahawk blog.

http://iowahawk.type...he-witless.html

Longhorns 17, Badgers 1

Please pardon this brief departure from my normal folderol, but every so often a member of the chattering class issues a nugget of stupidity so egregious that no amount of mockery will suffice. Particularly when the issuer of said stupidity holds a Nobel Prize.

Case in point: Paul Krugman. The Times' staff economics blowhard recently typed, re the state of education in Texas:

And in low-tax, low-spending Texas, the kids are not all right. The high school graduation rate, at just 61.3 percent, puts Texas 43rd out of 50 in state rankings. Nationally, the state ranks fifth in child poverty; it leads in the percentage of children without health insurance. And only 78 percent of Texas children are in excellent or very good health, significantly below the national average.

Similarly, The Economist passes on what appears to be the cut-'n'-paste lefty factoid du jour:

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.

The point being, I suppose, is that unionized teachers stand as a thin chalk-stained line keeping Wisconsin from descending into the dystopian non-union educational hellscape of Texas. Interesting, if it wasn't complete bullshit.

[RedScare]

I can't help but be amused that the article that you linked as sticking up for Texas pointed out that whites perform better on standardized tests for a variety of socieoeconomic and racial reasons...exactly contrary to the claim others made in the Dayton Police thread. I guess if it helps make your point, go with it.

(By the way, I happen to agree with the guy. Texas has crappy education, but it isn't because of CBAs, or the lack thereof.)

The other topic...

I should note that it wasn't August 948 making that claim. He actually suggested that this effect could be at play.

[august948]

Interesting that you should bring up the Dayton thread, since part of what iowahawk asserts in his blog is that blacks in Wisconsin perform worse coming out of their public schools than out of ours. I wonder if the same can be said of Ohio? Perhaps that is a nexus between that topic and this.

[dbigtex56]

The educational system cannot be expected to compensate for local cultural norms. To place the onus on teachers and children is convenient - and incorrect.

Good teachers deserve to be compensated - but they cannot educate children without parental and community support. Until adults understand one another's problems and concerns, and offer support for education, much money and many young lives will be wasted.

[TheNiche]

The educational system cannot be expected to compensate for local cultural norms. To place the onus on teachers and children is convenient - and incorrect.

Good teachers deserve to be compensated - but they cannot educate children without parental and community support. Until adults understand one another's problems and concerns, and offer support for education, much money and many young lives will be wasted.

There's nothing about what you just said that I understood well enough that I can disagree with it. Is there a contextual relevance that I'm missing?

[dbigtex56]

There's nothing about what you just said that I understood well enough that I can disagree with it. Is there a contextual relevance that I'm missing?

Yes. Obviously, you and I have enjoyed some advantages; an emphasis on vocabulary, spelling and conventional (to us) manners.

We were taught these things. Not everyone grows up with these expectations. In many households, not many people read, or are read to. The concept of a dictionary is foreign, let alone finding one on the bookshelf (a term itself, perhaps alien).

Do you understand that some people grow up with the understanding that life is merely survival mode, and that what we think of as 'the basics' are irrelevant? And an educational system is supposed to compensate for that attitude! No; unless there's an emphasis at home, and support from the community, formal education is often viewed with disdain or amusement.

And this is the fault of neither children nor teachers. That's why I ask that adults sort out what we expect from the coming generation.

[TheNiche]

Yes. Obviously, you and I have enjoyed some advantages; an emphasis on vocabulary, spelling and conventional (to us) manners.

We were taught these things. Not everyone grows up with these expectations. In many households, not many people read, or are read to. The concept of a dictionary is foreign, let alone finding one on the bookshelf (a term itself, perhaps alien).

Do you understand that some people grow up with the understanding that life is merely survival mode, and that what we think of as 'the basics' are irrelevant? And an educational system is supposed to compensate for that attitude! No; unless there's an emphasis at home, and support from the community, formal education is often viewed with disdain or amusement.

And this is the fault of neither children nor teachers. That's why I ask that adults sort out what we expect from the coming generation.

I don't think that Americans grasp the concept of survival mode...really at all. And that's coming from someone who grew up in a border town (in a county that chronically had the lowest wages and highest unemployment rates) surrounded by a disproportionately obese population Mexican kids for a peer group--and yeah, they didn't grasp the concept of survival mode either. They were indulged by their parents. As adults, many of them still are.

Contrast that with the Asian immigrant experience. Granted, it isn't a random sample of that culture, but the people that came over certainly understood what "survival mode" meant (and perhaps very little, otherwise) and endeavored to inflict a work ethic upon their offspring to ensure their survivability. Is that what you would prefer? I really don't think that either extreme is healthy, but I'm probably biased. It's all relative, really.

[ToryGattis]

The original link is to the post at my twin blog over at the Chronicle, Opportunity Urbanism, but there's actually a pretty interesting debate on this topic in the comment thread of the original post at Houston Strategies:

http://houstonstrategies.blogspot.com/2011/03/nashville-vs-houston-vs-coasts-tx-beats.html