The debate continues. I started it with this post arguing that Diane Ravitch is wrong to say that the Massachusetts Miracle proves teachers unions to not be such the bad guys after all when it comes to education improvement. Diane's rebuttal is here. Then Jay Greene responded. Now Sol Stern has this to say:
Jay Greene's critique of Diane Ravitch's??comments??about the "Massachusetts??miracle" and what effects?? teacher unions may or may not have on school reform??misses the context of Diane's original statement. The context is that??most??"school reformers"??have been arguing that unions are so powerful and so??zealous about protecting??their members' material interests that they have become the main, sometimes the only,??institutional bulwark against reforming school systems and raising the achievement of disadvantaged students.??It was to interrogate??that received opinion that??Ravitch brought up the counter-factual of Finland and Massachusetts. Here are??two of the highest performing school systems in the world, yet both have??strong teacher unions. Ravitch??was not presenting her own??theory about the effects of teacher unions, merely??challenging the??validity of the reformers' grand theory about the??wholly negative effects??of??the unions. She did this by pointing to specific cases where the theory doesn't seem to explain the empirically observed outcome. Isn't that??what social??scientists??do all the time?Jay Greene's??claim??that Ravitch must now justify her??undermining the reformers grand theory by??producing a study proving that "unions do nothing to lower academic achievement" makes no sense. First of all, knowing Diane as a careful, non-ideological scholar, I don't think that she would ever say anything as absolute??as??"unions do nothing..."??Moreover, if??Greene's new standard??is that ??a "rigorous piece of social science research" is required every time someone makes a comment??questioning??the presumed??negative effect of teacher unions, then??he and all other reformers must also produce the "rigorous social science research" that supports??every statement they have ever made that mayoral control of the New York City schools has had a positive effect and raised academic achievement.??
