There Will Be Numbers: The limits of wonkery
Since the teachers in Chicago went on strike, Ezra Klein’s blog of gritty numerics has published four posts on the subject. Each has been, as one might expect, mired in the most precise and useless kind of wonkery available.
Monday morning, wonk apprentice Dylan Matthews made sure to leave debate (over the actual merits of the strike) aside, and instead explain what strikes mean for the students. His findings? “Nothing good, the best empirical evidence suggests.” Think. About. The. Kids.
Later that day, Matthews published another post on the strike, this time explaining “Everything you need to know about the Chicago teacher’s strike.” And what are the two sides actually fighting about?
- Teacher evaluations
- Laid off teacher recalls
- Smaller class sizes
- Air conditioning
He discusses teacher pay and benefits, as well as a host of other issues for which there are plenty of accessible numbers to crunch, copy, and paste (like, for instance, how Chicago schools compare nationally in terms of assessment results and the length of the school year). He then launches into a flurry of numbers concerning the city’s finances.
Finally, a short section outlines how test scores would play a larger role in teacher evaluation anyway once “Race to the Top” is implemented. There aren’t too many numbers there though, so Matthews doesn’t dillidally. The one bit of numerical information he does have is that test scores are scheduled under current law to make up 20-40% of evaluations anyway. Oh, and he makes sure to note that the students are in limbo right now because, per his original post, the strikes leave them with no place to go.
What he doesn’t do is give any real information or analysis for what he himself claims are the real issues: what the evaluations will actually consist of, how teacher recalls to fill vacant positions would actually work, what the effects of smaller class sizes are on outcomes and how much that would cost, or the number of schools without air conditioning. How much would installation and a year’s energy bill afterward cost, I wonder? Alas, that info is probably not so easily linked to, despite how much more important it is.
Instead, on Tuesday morning, Matthews puts together an even more involved post that deals with how much teachers in Chicago make, despite the fact that this is admittedly not what the strike is about. Nevertheless, Matthews debunks the Union’s alleged average and median salary numbers, doing a bit of high stakes arithmetic to show that the median income for Chicago teachers is probably closer to $71,017 once you account for differences in payroll taxes, etc.
However, still nothing, numbers or otherwise, on the issues that the strike is supposedly really about.
And now today, while I was listening to the final minutes of NPR’s Morning Edition, Matthews filed his fourth post on the subject, this time comparing Chicago teacher’s pay to the national average no less. He’s still at it! I know Matthews is eager to flex is wonk muscles and show us all what’s really going on in Chicago according to the numbers. And indeed I am eager for him to do that as well! So why is he still talking about teacher pay?
It turns out that Chicago teachers have the highest starting salary, and one of the highest maximum salaries of any similarly situated school district.
But wait for it, here’s how Matthews signs off after bestowing this crucial little kernel of insight,
“Again, this says nothing about the propriety of Chicago’s pay schedule. Maybe they’re paying teachers adequately and most other school districts are shirking them. Maybe it could use to raise its maximum pay to New York levels to attract highly educated teachers. But in any case, Chicago teachers make significantly more than average, no matter their education or experience level.”
This is a textbook case of passive aggressive wonkery. Matthews isn’t trying to make a value judgment here, he’s just laying out the facts so that others can make that decision with more information.
Now the problem isn’t that Matthew’s has sided against the Chicago Teachers Union. I don’t care who he sides with. The problem is that he masks it in such phony neutrality. It is in fact more deceptive than if he were to just lay out his biases up front. He’s not giving readers all of the information related to the situation, or even most of the numbers. Instead he’s fueling a particular side’s talking points by NOT attempting to uncover, tabulate, or otherwise analyze the information which is actually relevant to the strike, per his own, hand-typed, “all you need to know” guide.
If you’re going to try and report on the news from a numbers and cents angle, then do so for all the relevant sides of the issue, not just one.
OR, if you’re not attempting to be neutral, don’t mislead by agenda setting and then with a straight face try to pretend that’s not what you’re doing.
One question Matthews might ask himself is why, if teacher pay is not what the strike is about, or even what the CTU and CSD really disagree about, he has wasted so much of his time talking precisely about the part of the story which is a non-story.
Wonkery without context is useless. It can even be worse than ignorance in some instances, in the same way that being misinformed can be worse than just being uninformed. Wonkery that actually skews the context, and paints a misleading picture of what’s going on by playing up non-issues though is simply irresponsible.
Good post, and I say that as someone prepared to hate it. Its quite relevant that the media, even the well informed media, is focusing almost ocmplete on the issue that they admit is not the real issue (pay) rather than the actual sticking points (testing and evaluation). I am not 100% convinced, but you also make a good case for Mathews passive aggresivley hiding his biases based upon post topic seletion and framing.Report
One day someone should write up a “Common myths about teacher’s” post. (Which can go alongside “Marginal taxation system: The US has it, and what it means”).
I’ve been wandering around the intertubes and the sheer number of people who believe teachers get a three month paid vacation is staggering. (They get two months of unpaid leave. The other month is generally actual work that happens when kids aren’t in school — in-service days, staff meetings, and the wind up and down before and after school).
Having noticed my wife’s pay stubs on occasion, I can’t help but notice the attention paid to her princely salary (IE: roughly half mine, despite having the same level of education) and then her notoriously luxurious pension (in Texas, at least, it’s not) without noting that, like SS, a sizeable chunk of her princely salary GOES to her pension plan.
It feels like double counting, you know?Report
She needs to run for governor.Report
@Morato But it is hardly consistant region to region. I grew up in a family almost completely populated by teachers (father, mother part time, both grandfathers, grandmother, aunts etc), and I am comfortable saying that most of them had the option of taking the summer off, and the ramp up/staff days did not take up any where near a full month, and that the summer off was in addition to regular holidays, Christmas break, Spring break etc. There compensation was nothing to write home about, but it was decent for the job. The problem for many of the junior teachers was those that wanted to work the summer and earn some extra money were by no means guaranteed, and the course you taught during the summer could be one that you had to do a lot of prepration for since it was outside of your normal lane. The real challenge in doing the sort of book you are talking about would be pensions. Pay is easy to explain across regional, education, and time of service variations, but pensions vary in a much more structural way across states.Report
Eh, I’m more talking basic myths.
A teacher’s basic contract is for, roughly, 200 days. (180ish school days + 20 misc days where kids aren’t in school). They get paid a flat rate for those 200 days. To simplify teacher’s lives, they are (generally but not often) paid out over the 12 months of the year, but they’re only paid for the 200 days their butts are in a classroom.
Those extra four weeks (20 days) are spread out — a week or so are inservice days during the school year. (Teachers are at work, kids aren’t). Another week to two weeks is end of school/beginning of school work (planning, meetings, classroom tear-down or repair) – -teachers tend to work a week or so after school ends and start a week or so before it begins. The last week is generally conferences, mandatory planning events, that sort of thing. (That’s more fluid, but there’s generally a requirement for at least a day or three of professional development).
Some districts don’t, but many do because it generally sucks to go two months or so without a paycheck and most teachers prefer to get 12 equal paychecks then 8 equal ones, then two halfish ones, then nothing until school starts again.
Anyways — the basic myth is that teachers get three months of paid vacation every summer. They don’t. They get a summer of unpaid leave. Their actual vacation/sick benefits are generally utter crap (my wife basically has like two vacation days a year, and whatever the bare legally allowed minimum of sick days are. And god help you if you get sick in December, January, or anytime in the spring during testing season.)
Another basic myth is the six-hour work day. Even the burnout cases tend to have to put in 8 hours, minimum, just to get even the burnout level of grading and prep work done. (IE: The bare amount you can do without having the wrath of your department head, principle, or asst principle on your butt).
I think a ‘slow’ work week for teachers is one where they only spend six to eight hours a week outside of school grading and doing prep work. (Ontop of 8 hours a day in the class — there before and after school for tutorials, detentions, etc).
There’s also tenure — it’s hardly universal (and seems to be on the decline). Texas has a bit of a legacy system (permanent contracts), but they haven’t been a common option in decades — if ever. It’s one to two year contracts (with exceptional teachers getting three year ones) here.
Ask the average Joe what teaching is like, and it really IS “three months paid vacation, can’t be fired no matter how bad they suck, and overpaid with super benefits”. (Where overpaid is generally 2x the median salary). As for super benefits — speaking solely of Texas, the only teachers I know that use the health benefits are those that are single or whose spouse’s policies won’t allow them on it, and the pension is “Social Security administered by the State of Texas and subject to raids”.
The numbers out the back end look a lot worse than my current SSA projections, btw.
Heck, if I croak my wife can’t even claim MY Social Security benefits because of it.Report
I would agree with most of that, other than the sick days/benefits comment in para 4 because that is one that varies dramatically across states and districts. I don’t buy into the “2 months of unpaid leave” as an adequate explanation for the summer period any more than I would uncritically accept “3 months paid vacation” as a sufficient explanation. I think of compensation as a whole, and annual compensation versus annual work days seems a better way of assessing the package.Report
Very true. However, just for the record — people hear “Three months vacation” and think “12 weeks of paid vacation”.
I get three weeks and that’s considered pretty good in my field. Three months? That’s the Senior VP in Charge of Being the CEO’s Nephew league.
“Teachers only get paid for the time they work, making summers unpaid” is more accurate and gives people the actual correct idea of the situation. Some districts will divide the total by 12 and send out monthly checks (even over the summer), some won’t. But they only get paid for their actual contracted workdays.
Summer school, BTW, is generally a seperate contract. It’s literally a second job, at least around here, for those that take it. Bus driving, coaching special olympics, and such — those are stipended. (Bonus pay, usually not much).Report
Sure they’re unpaid. But you assume that American workers might not also be willing to take three months off (with healthcare still paid and retirement contributions maintained) (and you’re guaranteed to still have a job at the end of those three months)Report
I’m pretty sure I can show that quantitatively. how many americans live paycheck to paycheck again?Report
If they’d be willing all I can say is: go try to become a teacher.Report
SATs were too high. 😉
A college degree is just about essential to make a lot of money in a career, but what if you don’t want to work all that hard to get a diploma?
Slackers wanting to earn the country’s easiest college major, should major in education.
It’s easy to get “A’s” if you’re an education major. Maybe that’s why one out of 10 college graduates major in education.
Research over the years has indicated that education majors, who enter college with the lowest average SAT scores, leave with the highest grades. Some of academic evidence documenting easy A’s for future teachers goes back more than 50 years!
The latest damning report on the ease of majoring in education comes from research at the University of Missouri, my alma mater. The study, conducted by economist Cory Koedel shows that education majors receive “substantially higher” grades than students in every other department.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505145_162-37245744/heres-the-nations-easiest-college-major/Report
Hey, if you want to up the training, standards, and (consequently) pay for teachers, I’m all for it.Report
Tom, What’s the drift of this post ? Are you passively suggesting that less motivated and/or less academically inclined students BECOME teachers or simply that they attain education degrees because it’s easier?
You may, in fact, be correct about both points. Does Dr. Koedel have follow up research indicating whether higher/lower SAT scorers are more/less likely to pursue a career in teaching once they graduate with their “gut” degrees. I’d like to see that.
The endless research on teacher quality seems to have conclusively decided that teachers who are smart are more likely to have students who perform better on standardized tests. But performing well on standardized tests is still a narrow measure of what a child has learned in a given year. Just like waking up hung over and staggering in to your High School gym doesn’t necessarily damn you to your safety school and subject you to a life of algebra teacher and JV Volleyball coach.Report
If you’re trying to claim that teachers only make 2/3 the annual average salary, then (at least in Chicago) that seems to not be the case.Report
There is also the complete loss of freedom and control over your schedule. I get two personal days a year. I get 10 sick days (1/month) but we are highly discouraged from using them. Neither of these roll over or can be cashed in. I’ve had to miss a number of important events because they were too far away and I couldn’t take time off to make travel arrangements. I know for a fact that some teachers will abuse sick days, using them as personal cays, though I’d venture to guess this happens in most salaried positions.
Does it make the additional time off equivalent? No. But it is at least a mitigating factor that is rarely understood.Report
There exist a large number of American workers who’ve been unable to take a vacation day for most of their career, to the point that they are disallowed from accumulating further vacation time. If these people had to work the entire week but take three pre-scheduled months off every year, they’d wind up getting more vacation time than they do now.Report
“Teachers only get paid for the time they work, making summers unpaid” I still do not agree with that framing. Technically, and like most jobs, they don’t get paid for weekends either, but we don’t frame that as having two unpaid days a week. They get an annual compensation for 200 days work. It is reasonable to note that that annual salary allows them to have a 2.5 month summer off from work. However, I do get where you are coming from.Report
Thanks. 🙂
I have a similar pet peeve about marginal tax brackets. Which became astonishment when I realized people weren’t being precise, they actually did not know how their own income tax system worked.Report
I agree that a lot of people don’t know how marginal tax brackets work, but I have more than once been accused of not knowing how they work when I talk about how the increases in rates matter. (Because they do.)Report
We’re told that income inequality is the most important problem in American society today.
Except when it’s teachers on the upside, at which point bringing up income inequality becomes a disingenuous attempt to distract us from the REAL issues.Report
It’s disingenous if the issue at hand is how much the school district should pay teachers, which it isn’t.
The strike is by all accounts not about pay. Anyone who wants to make it about pay, something that is not why the negotiations of ground to a hault, will be distracting from the actual issue, which is in what ways teachers should be accountable, and to whom, and based on what.
Plus the inequality is at the top. Teachers haven’t made the most gains in the past 20 years, the 1% has. Whether or not they’ve earned it is another issue.
So Density, I reallyhave no idea what you’re even trying to say.Report
If pointing to inequality is a meaningful argument, then it’s always meaningful, even if it’s being used by people you hate against people you like.Report
Wealth inequality. wealth, my good friend.Report
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=2908Report
am aware of all that, and I still maintain that the problem is wealth inequality.
It is wealth that is the great insulator against all ills.
I don’t mind if they make gobtons of money — so long as their kids don’t go into the business.
Hell, look at Romney, Mr. “I’ll be the complete opposite of Daddy!”
A cowardly man who has never earned anything in his life that didn’t cost someone else more, and who can’t be bothered to not insult people. The sort of man who thinks of our vets as “hired help” and “paid too damn much”Report