Shut-up Stupid Sunday: Teacher's Unions

The GOP has declared war on what they say is the cause of all the nations problems Teacher's Unions. They claim that states with strong union membership don't show better results than states with low union membership. So I tested this claim looking at Standardized Test Scores by State vs. Union Membership here is what I found.

Best on Standardized Tests:

#1 Massachusetts.............99.3% Union Membership
#2 Vermont......................90.8% Union Membership
#3 New Jersey...................100% Union Membership
#4 New Hampshire...........100% Union Membership
#5 Minnesota....................99.3% Union Membership

Worst on Standardized Tests:

#50 Mississippi.................02.2% Union Membership
#49 West Virgina..............10.5% Union Membership
#48 New Mexico...............36.8% Union Membership
#47 Louisiana.....................11.6% Union Membership
#46 Oklahoma......................33% Union Membership

Now correlation does not mean causation, but this is pretty striking. The top states on standardized test results all had strong union membership and the ones on the bottom had weak union membership.

So to answer George W. Bush's famous question, “Is they learning?” it appears that only in states that have high union membership “is” the students learning.

So to anyone who says that union membership doesn't make for better schools, I say, “Shut-up Stupid and look at the side by side comparison.”

By Darrell B. Nelson author of I KILLED THE MAN THAT WASN'T THERE