Just found a really interesting posting at http://blogs.ajc.com/get-schooled-blog/2011/02/22/no-strong-teacher-unio...
There are five states in the US that make it illigal for teachers to form unions, namely South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Texas, and Virginia. Their ACT/SAT rankings are, respectively 50th, 49th, 48th, 47th, and 44th. Does anyone else see a correlation?
The data is from a professor from Georgia Southern University named Michael More. No idea if he's related to the famous director of documentaries.
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This just sent to me as a parent/advocate regarding California state teacher wages. It's a link to a new service provided by "Ed-Data" and the site's description follows. These folks are not millionaires by any means:
"In California’s public school system, each district negotiates a contract detailing salaries, benefits, and working conditions for its teachers through a collective bargaining process. This report provides information about teachers’ salaries and benefits and their credentials and experience. See Teachers in California for a more complete background and Negotiating Teachers’ Contracts in California for a description of how teachers’ employment contracts are determined.
Salary and benefit information in the following tables come from a teacher salary report (J-90) that districts are not required to file. About 20% (covering about 1% of the state's ADA) do not file and therefore will have no data in the Teacher Salary, Teacher Benefit, or Supplemental Salary tables."
http://www.ed-data.org/Navigation/fsTwoPanel.asp?bottom=/fiscal/teacherS...
As an added bonus, there's a Facebook page with a funny satire on teacher salaries. Type this title into facebook: "Are you sick of highly paid teachers?" posted by Meredith Menden on Friday, February 18, 2011 at 3:32pm"