Education is not a werewolf.

Opinion 4:  Education is not a werewolf. There's no silver bullet. Simply fixing one aspect of education is not going to fix the whole system. I don't see the existence of public sector unions, for starters, as a key issue affecting our education system. A chart has been circulating showing which states do not require collective bargaining and which states explicitly outlaw it. The most common accompanying argument is that the worst states for education correlate with the anti-collective bargaining states. My response: cum hoc ergo propter hoc. There's no evidence supporting the belief that unions or collective bargaining improve education. The above map shows strong correlation with another recent map of poverty state by state. Indeed the correlation is stronger with poverty than it is with collective bargaining. Michigan, for example, has terrible schools but mandates collective bargaining by law; however it is also very poor. Perhaps poverty is a better explanation for poor school performance than unions. Keep in mind this argument works both ways: the data neither supports increasing collective bargaining/union power nor decreasing it. I just don't think it's a big deal either way.

Similarly, many policy makers and pundits are calling for an end to teacher tenure and seniority rules. While the arguments are initially persuasive to me, I'm not sure that it will change much. Take these comments by former chancellor of D.C. schools, Michelle Rhee:

These "provisions make absolutely no sense for children," Rhee says. "The research shows that 1) you end up firing some of your best teachers; 2) you end up having to fire more teachers because the junior teachers get paid the least so you have to fire more of them to cover the budget deficit, and then 3) that it disproportionately negatively impacts the lowest performing schools — the highest needs schools — because they have the largest number of new teachers."

Seems like a few pretty good reasons to end seniority. But think back to that map. Most of the states without collective bargaining also don't have legally mandated tenure or seniority for school teachers. Georgia does not have strong seniority protections, yet its schools are among the worst in the country.

The same argument applies to the push to allow principals to freely fire any teacher. The data just doesn't support it. For example: Cobb county fired 700 teachers last year (only to rehire ~500 of them). They might be one of the better districts in Georgia but they haven't seen much school improvement and they're not unique in their capacity to fire teachers. Atlanta Public Schools can fire teachers just as freely but continually ranks near the bottom state-wide. I think we'll see similar results out of Rhode Island where the Providence school board voted to fire all 2000 of its teachers to get around seniority protections. Most will be rehired but the schools will probably not measurably improve.

This is NOT that Harvard study.

Merit pay is even more specious. Again, the data doesn't tell us that merit pay is the key to reforming public education. In fact, a recent Harvard study finds that financial incentives either don't change anything or make schools worse. We often hear of merit pay as adding free market reforms and therefore creating competition between teachers. This kind of language is attractive to Republicans and Libertarians but we forget that the merit pay is being introduced into a fundamentally socialist system. For a good podcast considering just this issue click here. The effects one might expect are not necessarily going to occur because there's no competitive or free market aspects otherwise present.

If we established a national measure of teacher accountability, Georgia would rank near the top because it has weak seniority protections, principals have the authority to fire teachers, and there are no unions or collective bargaining here. Despite all of Georgia's teacher accountability, our schools still struggle. Maybe, just maybe, a focus on teacher accountability is a bit over-hyped. I also want to note that I don't think we should go completely in the opposite direction and never hold teachers accountable.

Tomorrow, I'll criticize the super trendy charter school movement.