Barbara Biasi, assistant professor of economics at the Yale School of Management, recently published a study that concluded that eliminating unions increases the gender gap in wages.
She looked at data from Wisconsin, before and after Scott Walker eliminated collective bargaining rights in 2011, in his Koch-funded effort to destroy unions.
For every dollar earned by men in the U.S., women earn about 82 cents, according to 2018 census data; this pay gap is even larger for Black and Hispanic women. Some public schools have avoided the gender wage gap because they follow a strict salary schedule, in which each teacher’s pay is determined based on objective factors such as seniority and academic degrees. But what happens when schools switch to a more flexible pay system?
Barbara Biasi, an assistant professor of economics at Yale SOM, had an opportunity to examine this question when Wisconsin passed Act 10, legislation that essentially weakened the power of teachers’ unions. Afterward, schools had much more latitude in deciding how much to pay teachers.
Five years after union agreements expired, male teachers earned about 1% more per year than female colleagues with similar experience and skills, reported Biasi and her co-author, Heather Sarsons at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. The gender gap was even higher among younger teachers.
While 1% might not seem like much, such a gap can substantially affect income in the long run, Biasi says. It “can add up pretty quickly over the course of a person’s career,” she says.
The results suggest that women may start earning less than men when they have to bargain on their own, rather than being supported by a union that negotiates for them. This effect could be seen in many industries as union membership shrinks. “The decline of union power might have an increase in the gender gap in pay as one of the unintended consequences,” Biasi says.
Ed reformers have come up with an innovative new tutoring model:
“The New Hampshire Department of Education announced a first in the nation program partnership with Sal Khan and Schoolhouse.world that will provide free tutoring to New Hampshire high school students. Schoolhouse.world is a platform that connects people around the world to have free, small-group tutoring sessions. It currently offers tutoring in high school math and SAT prep, with the aim of expanding across more ages and topics.”
It’s innovative because the tutors work for free. This company doesn’t pay their employees.
The people who push this stuff all make nice, comfortable salaries with benefits- what do you think Arne Duncan makes in his job selling school privatization? Half a million, at least. Apparently everyone else is supposed to work for free.
The ed reform business model is “don’t pay teachers”:
“Your work is voluntary, however, schoolhouse.world offers tutors to share their Venmo or PayPal information to encourage students and parents to support you if they have the means.”
I think it’s hysterical, because it’s so clueless. These people actually believe that teachers should have to rely on DONATIONS from students to get paid.
https://manchesterinklink.com/nh-department-of-education-launches-free-khan-academy-tutoring-service-for-high-schoolers/
The state commissioner in New Hampshire is a home schooler who hates public schools.
Would Arne Duncan or Jeb Bush or any of the other leaders of the ed reform “movement” work without pay? What about the university professors promoting this stuff? Do they get paid?
Why do they expect lower level people to work without pay? And how does this “we don’t pay tutors” policy comport with their constant claims that they understand the value of teachers? They value teachers, except when it comes to paying them for work?
If I could offer some advice to low and middle income young people- don’t work for free.
Don’t get bamboozled into providing free labor for these millionaires and billionaires under the guise of volunteerism.
You can’t afford it. You’ll need to get paid to cover your skyrocketing college tuition, student loans and Obamacare premiums.
Arne Duncan makes a handsome salary! He doesn’t work for free. You shouldn’t either.
Chiara Volunteering in your profession doesn’t play well on a resume either. CBK
“That is one reason why, for example, I cringe whenever I hear a supporter of school choice paint our education system with a ridiculously broad brush and portray all traditional public schools as “failing.” This caricature is not only factually inaccurate, but it ignores the incredible work done by so many public school students, parents and teachers.”
Ed reform rebranding as pro-public schools. We’ll see a lot of this now, I suspect. The same people who were sneering at “government schools” in December when Trump was in power now want us to believe they’ve done a 180 and they support public schools.
Wholly political expediency. I guess public schools are fashionable again.
Women are generally shortchanged when there is latitude in discretion over employee compensation. Often public schools pay teachers according education and years of service. This a more equitable form of compensation in a profession where women are over 75% of the workforce.
Privatization of education generally pays teachers less for their labor as these schools are generally a non-union workplace. Privatization generally pays a lot more the CEOs and administrators at the top and a lot less for those that actually teach. These non-union workers generally have fewer benefits, a worse pension and no due process clause in their contracts. They are “at will” employees. In some cases teachers are exploited when teachers are expected to work beyond the regular school day for no compensation. President Biden has repeatedly stated that he supports unions and a living wage. The president should also reject the exploitative practice in private charter schools. Privatization often pays workers a lot less money and reduces employee benefits. In New Orleans career black teachers were replaced by young white employees when the district became a private charter school system. In education teachers, mostly women, are forced out of a middle class job and into a job paying significantly less. If President Biden wants to rebuild the middle class, he can start by supporting real public schools where teachers are more fairly compensated for their work.
More than 90% of charters are non-union.
Diane Catholic schools are also deserving of criticism in their overall treatment of lay teachers. I know of some serious internal criticism going forward on this, but it still needs to be said. CBK
an essential point
ciedie aech Just another sign of reformers and the co-opting of public education. Non-union members can be more easily manipulated and they have no concerted political voice. CBK
Someone should be tracking all the voucher laws ed reformers are pushing:
“DES MOINES — Republican lawmakers who control the Iowa Legislature pressed ahead Monday with plans to expand school choice for parents with public funds for private and charter schools and with requiring K-12 schools to offer an in-person instruction option as the state struggles through the pandemic.”
Arizona, Ohio, Iowa, Florida.
You start to understand why political leaders got nothing done for public schools in the pandemic when you realize they were all working on promoting and funding private schools.
It’s not that they perform no work at all- they simply perform no work that benefits public school students. The priority was private school students- public school students, once again, were ignored.
Have the contributed anything at all other than demanding that public school students be tested this spring? Can anyone point to any concrete accomplishment that is even relevant to students in public schools? We’re paying thousands of these people. Other than promoting and marketing private schools, do they do any work?
NPE is tracking the advance of the voucher movement across the country. We send out alerts to members and pro-public school groups in those states. Indiana is another one.
Not paying tutors is taking off in popularity in edreformworld:
“Lisa Snell is director of K-12 policy partnerships at Charles Koch Institute. Its sister organization, the Charles Koch Foundation, is a supporter of the Harvard Program on Education Policy and Governance, which sponsors Education Next.”
Does Lisa Snell get paid for the work she does? Why does she want other people to work for free? The Koch’s CERTAINLY get paid.
What’s the tuition at Harvard these days? 80k a year? But everyone else is supposed to work for free?
We have the money to pay thousands of ed reform consultants to promote privatization but we can’t pay tutors?
https://www.educationnext.org/a-national-tutoring-system-not-so-fast/
Unions are a great force against income inequality. The GOP is vehemently opposed to unions and too many Democrats pay lip service to unions but don’t deliver the goods. In an ideal world, the Taft-Hartley Act should be freeze-dried and then expelled into the furthest reaches of the outer solar system. Not to mention all the right to work (for less) states.
I thought that one of the more interesting results was that the gap did not widen if the school’s principal or the district superintendent was female.
It is noted further down in the original post, but some might miss that this working paper was coauthored with Dr. Heather Sarsons, an assistant professor at Chicago Booth.