Whoa. Is this really Scott Walker? Holy shit. If it is, no wonder this dude didn’t graduate from college.
But to be fair, Nadir is not an idiot. Clearly, he has good sense enough to base his entire argument on his own snide contempt, and avoids the trap of offering “facts”.
There are many colors in the Crap Rainbow, my dear fellow.
I’m with the unions here but:
Median means the 50th percentaile. that means that 50% of teachers make MORE than that amount and 50% make less.
Mean is what you and i consider average. This measure is MORE susceptible to skew.
Mode shows clumping so if there are a lot of teachers that make 32K then 32K is a mode.
Median is consistently a relevant average to use.
I think the pay issue is something you can debate but stripping bargaining rights and the ridiculous annual election rule is way over the edge.
I think its because its a cap.
Thats an argument you can make but stripping bargaining rights and making unions get a mahjority of every employee to vote for a union every year is nucking futz.
I am not up on what analysis is better to use (median or mean) but isn’t there an issue with the Median when, in this case, you have varying costs of living? A teacher in Boise may make less than a teacher in New York City in absolute terms but when measured against what it costs to live in the area the teacher in Boise might be better off (not saying they are, haven’t looked, just a made-up example).
So, if you draw a median line between Boise and New York City teachers are you getting a useful measure?
(Again, really asking, I do not know.)
Teachers unions are illegal in five states. These states rank 50th, 49th, 48th, 47th, and 44th in test scores.
There were apparently even more problems than these. Before he acted unilaterally, claiming budget emergency, he apparently tried twice before this to get the unionized prison guards replaced. He was overruled both times, which is why he switched to the “budget emergency” ploy.
So, I have to ask – how did this guy get elected? Why didn’t his Democratic opponents bring all this up in fiery red letters during the election?
Well, it’s certainly unpopular with teachers, and ultimately the voters will weigh in. But it’s not as if every other state gives their employees collective bargaining; lots don’t. I’m in Virginia, where it’s explicitly illegal, and I’m not aware of teachers here being especially oppressed.
Nadir, just what do you hope to gain be denying Wisconsin kids access to quality education? Why do you want to damage America’s ability to compete in the information age?
Median means the center point of a distribution. So if the lowest end of the scale is 10,000 and the upper end is 50,000 then the median is 30,000.
For instance, if you had 5 people who made, respectively, 10k, 20k, 30k, 40k and 50k, the median would be 30k.
But if you had 5 people who made, respectively, 10k, 10k, 10k, 10k, and 50k, then the median is still 30k.
Using median as a comparative marker for pay scales is fraught with issues. One system might have many, many new teachers making the lower end of the pay scale, with a very few senior people making a much higher rate. Another might have many very senior, highly credentialed people and only a few newbies making squat, and the median of both systems could be identical. This tells you nothing about waste, inefficiency, abuse of longevity promotion, competence of personnel, effectiveness of effort, or anything else that should be examined to decide if a pay scale is “too high” or the opposite.
furt, guess which one of those scores goes to *not especially oppressed *Virginia?
Hint- only 6 states scored worse.
It also turns out he’s a Kochsucker (well, faux-Kochsucker), as evidenced in this prank call today:
What “scam” are you talking about? How is it a scam?
What company do you work for? You do realize that paying overtime at 1.5x the rate of pay isn’t a union thing, don’t you? Or are you unaware that it’s federal law?
My education included the concept of “correlation does not equal causation.”
Would you be willing to tie teacher compensation to those same test scores, without any adjustment? Why not?
So you’re implying populations that engage in union busting tend to be discouraging against academic success?
No but when you see such a distinct correlation it definitely makes you go, “Hmmm…” It is certainly suggestive.
If you have explanations for the bad test scores that make this a mere coincidence then feel free to point them out.
What?!?! You’re the one who brought up your state’s stance on unions and claimed that it demonstrated teachers not being oppressed. I merely offered you **Whack-a-Mole’s **cite showing that Virginia’s students don’t seem to be doing too well, by a commonly offered metric. But you are correct that this is merely a single datum.
However, the fact that ***all ***the states that prohibit collective bargaining by teachers ***also ***score on the abysmal level in this same metric suggests that there is more than random chance in operation. Why, looky there, folks, it seems like it might be a pattern. Maybe there really is some causation after all.
Separately, why do you insist on conflating teacher compensation with the ability to collectively bargain? Are you going to try to claim that the teachers in those states that do not allow collective bargaining must also necessarily be the worst teachers and thereby deserve the poorest pay? And also thereby justify not being able to collectively bargain?
Other than hating unions, I just don’t see your point here.
So you admit you have no personal knowledge of Wisconsin public workers?
And by the way, they’ve ceded all the financial demands Walker made. They simply oppose his intent to destroy unions. Even the Fire/Police workers who aren’t subject to his union busting are out there protesting.
If you are an exempt employee, the employer is not required to pay you any overtime. The qualifications for exempt professional job duties are as follows:
Sounds like teachers are exempt employees.