Crossroads

In literature, movies, popular culture, crossroads seem to be frequently used as a symbol for a time of introspection and decision-making, a time of crisis, perhaps?

The politically-charged environment of my State has brought me to a sort of crossroads in my ideologies and visions.

I find myself still advocating for many things liberals also advocate for: basic human rights.

The right to choose for my body what I want, and to respect other women in the decisions they make when it comes to contraception and pregnancy. And their right to have access to adequate, safer ways to carry out those decisions.

The rights of women not to be degraded by some people deciding that now "rape" will have a new meaning.

The rights of women to have same working conditions - and pay - as men.

The rights of human beings to love and being in a committed relationship with another human being regardless of their race, religion... or gender. And their right, when illness or the end of their life comes, to not to be harassed by bureaucrats who would not allow them to be with one another because they are not "legally" married. And their right to be married!

The right of soldiers not to be told they cannot serve their country because they are gay. And their rights to be able to say so openly.

The right of people and children not to be victims of human trafficking and abuse.

The right to fight to save the environment.

The right to worship - or not - in any way I see fit. And the right to say what I want. And in both instances, to not be afraid of repercussion, of bodily harm, incarceration or death.

Yes. All of that. And much, much more.

But then, I find myself advocating for a cause a lot of people who consider themselves liberals are against: Governor Walker's Budget Repair Bill.

That 'evil' bill. Well, no. It is not evil.

This last couple of weeks, I have read and heard of some protesters in Madison who claim they are defending their rights, but then they trample on the rights of others. I see the unions advocating for their rights, but they still think they can force union members to join their ranks and pay their dues.

I see people from all walks of life talking ugly about "the other side". I see 14 senators running away from their duty instead of doing their job. And I voted for them.

A handful of Walker supporters went to Madison last week, and a friend of mine was there. This person was subjected to foul language and offensive words. Her right to also protest undermined by those not agreeing with her. Is that freedom?

And I wonder, why is it so hard to understand that this guy is trying to do something to save this great State of Wisconsin from bankruptcy? Plain and simple.

Yes, you can laugh. If you are against this bill, you don't have to agree with me. I would not laugh at you. My previous blog posts give you my answers and stance to some of the issues presented and the fallacies, the myths floating around. I hope everyone would not make their decisions based on "my ______ (relative, friend) belongs (or belonged) to an union" or "so and so are State workers", on emotions. Believe me, I even know teachers, teacher's relatives and public sector workers who understand what this is about.

It is my hope that anyone on each side of the issue can sit down and analyze all the data, then make their decisions based on drawing their own conclusions. If after that, they still do not support it, fine. At least they are firm in their conviction. A conviction that is the fruit of careful thought and consideration.

And being that I am at crossroads reminds me of a time, while growing up, when I witnessed the adults of the era voting across political party lines and it was OK. They did not need to align themselves with a particular party, but with the guy doing the job right at that particular moment in history. And I guess that is the way I will go.

Don't tell me I can't do that. I already did.

Collective Bargaining Fairy Tales. Part I

"Only 5 states do not have collective bargaining for educators and have deemed it illegal. Those states and their ranking on ACT/SAT scores are as follows: South Carolina: 50th, North Carolina: 49th Georgia, 48th Texas: 47th, and Virginia: 44th. Wisconsin is ranked #2 in the nation."

This has been floating around on Twitter for a couple of days. The post is intended to establish a correlation between collective bargaining and students scores. Right?

Well, not so fast.

For starters, the information allegedly comes from this site:

http://www.publicagenda.org/charts/state-state-sat-and-act-scores.

I further researched the matter. The data in the site is from 2006. Five years old.

In further research, I found documented data in a press release from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction on more recent results from 2010(Sorry, you will need to copy and paste the links to your browser, as my link function here seems to be broken):

http://dpi.state.wi.us/eis/pdf/dpinr2010_116.pdf

Interestingly enough, only 4% of the students participated on SAT and 69% participated on the ACT. Not a whooping, slam-dunk indicator of results, is it? By the little analysis written on another blog that seems pretty respectable, "Student Activism" by Angus Johnston, I found the following:

"Wisconsin ranks 3rd in the nation in SAT scores, but with a participation rate of just 4%. On the ACT, with a much more representative participation rate of 69%, it was tied for 17th. In comparison…

•Virginia was 34th on the SAT with 67% participation, 13th on the ACT with 22% participation.
•Texas was 45th on the SAT with 53% participation, 33rd on the ACT with 33% participation.
•Georgia was 48th on the SAT with 74% participation, 34th on the ACT with 44% participation.
•North Carolina was 38th on the SAT with 63% participation, 20th on the ACT with 16% participation.
•South Carolina was 49th on the SAT with 66% participation, 44th on the ACT with 52% participation.

Wisconsin is clearly above the other five states in both SAT and ACT scores, but the gap isn’t anywhere near as big as the pro-union tweets suggest. Among high ACT participation states, Wisconsin ranks something like 4th in the nation. But among high SAT participation states, Virginia ranks about 5th in the nation — almost all the states with better SAT scores than Virginia have far smaller participation rates, drawing on a far more elite test-taking group"

It has a lot more information, and it would be redundant to copy and paste all of it here. It can be found on:

http://studentactivism.net/2011/02/20/sat-act-unions/#comment-14522

I also found another blog that cites factual, documented information regarding collective bargaining and the impact on test scores:

http://northparkstreet.com/2011/02/twitter-collective-bargaining-for-teachers-and-act-scores/

Regardless of statistics, tables and studies, my personal opinion is this: SAT, ACT, and whatever other scores are there to measure learning don't depend only on the ability of their teachers to bargain, but partly on the dedication they show to teach the children. Additionally, there are so many, many factors that influence how children achieve in school. It certainly is disturbing that people are unknowingly "retweeting" information to back up their claims without checking its accuracy, as clearly has been stated by the sources I used. I went to each and every site the bloggers used as sources. The evidence is there.

So, go ahead, browse the sites and decide for yourself. Instead of falling over-backwards or letting my jaw drop, I went and did my homework, and decided to share it with you.

Happy reading!