NYC KIPP Charter School Teachers Drop Union — Still Concerns, But No Trend
Two months ago it made quite a stir when announced that the American Federation of Teachers was having success unionizing two New York City KIPP public charter schools. On Friday, however, the astute Mike Antonucci wondered aloud why so much less attention is given to a story about two New York City KIPP public charter schools deciding to drop the union. It’s an excellent question for reasonable education reformers to step back and consider carefully. I’m beginning to think it’s safe to assume that neither the January pro-union charter school development nor the new anti-union charter school development is harbinger of a sweeping national trend. Still, as explained here in pixels by Dr. Marcus Winters and here on an iVoices podcast with Dr. William Moloney, serious concerns remain about how poorly unions and charter schools mix. But thanks to Mike Antonucci for helping to put the news into perspective.
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I'm Sure Glad Cars Aren't Produced Using the Education System Model
While comparing education to cars isn’t a perfect fit, there is a lot to be learned from the comparison. As a thought experiment, the Cato Institute’s Andrew Coulson examines the change in costs and productivity in America’s education system and applies it to the automotive world (H/T Joanne Jacobs): What would the U.S. automobile industry look like if it were run the same way, and had suffered the same productivity collapse, as public schooling? To the left is a 1971 Chevrolet Impala. According to the New York Times of September 25th, 1970, it originally sold for $3,460. That’s $19,011 in today’s dollars. If cars were like public schools, you would be compelled to buy one of these today, and to pay $43,479 for that privilege (2.3 times the original price). To measure productivity in education this way assumes that the students being taught today are no more or less challenging than the students being taught in 1970. If they are harder to teach, higher costs would be required to maintain the same output. If they are easier to teach, less would be required. (At least that’s what the Education Policy Center people tell me … I’m not that hard to […]
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