‘How to Lie With Statistics’: Teachers Union Edition They conflate state and total funding, play games with baselines, and ignore noncash teacher benefits.By Allysia Finley
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-lie-with-statistics-teachers-union-edition-1525303025
If you’ve ever taken a statistics class, you’ve probably read Darrell Huff’s “How to Lie with Statistics.” Teachers unions appear to have drawn some lessons from the 1954 book. They’re using misleading statistics to rally public support for teacher walkouts in West Virginia, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Arizona and Colorado. Here are some of their distortions.
• They conflate school funding and state education spending. In Oklahoma, unions proclaimed that per pupil school spending fell by 28.2% over the past decade. That refers to the inflation-adjusted state’s general funding formula. But total per pupil outlays increased by 16% in nominal terms between 2006 and 2016, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s most recent public education finance report. Adjusting for inflation, that’s a decline of only about 2%.
On average across the country, state funds make up only 47% of total school spending. Most of the rest comes from local property taxes. Since property tax hikes are politically unpopular, unions put pressure on state lawmakers to increase education spending from general funds. That has the benefit of diffusing accountability for local spending.
• They use elevated spending baselines. Teachers unions nearly always compare school spending and teacher salaries today with peak levels before the great recession, which were inflated like housing prices. Between 2000 and 2009, average per pupil spending across the country increased 52%, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. After flat-lining for a few years, per pupil spending ticked up by 7.5% between 2012 and 2015. School spending growth might have slowed over the past several years, but it still increased faster than the consumer price index.
Per pupil funding in Oklahoma shot up 46% between 2000 and 2009. During this period, average teacher salaries rose 52%. While average salaries have since fallen by 5%, even on an inflation-adjusted basis they remain higher today ($45,245) than in 2000 ($44,861) or 1990 ($44,088).
• They don’t account for other forms of compensation. Since 2000, per pupil spending on employee benefits has doubled. Benefits make up about 29 cents of every dollar of staff compensation, compared with 21 cents in 2000. In Arizona, about 24% of staff compensation goes to employee benefits, up from 18% in 2000. Teachers don’t see this in their paychecks, but pensions and health benefits are the fastest-growing expenses for many school districts, and most of the money goes to retired teachers.
• They elide data that don’t fit their argument. According to the National Education Association’s annual survey, the biggest average pay bumps in 2016 were in California (4.3%), Colorado (3.9%) and Wisconsin (3.5%). Wisconsin’s 2011 collective-bargaining reforms limit annual base salary increases to 2% while letting districts negotiate pay with individual teachers based on criteria other than job and education level. CONTINUE AT SITE
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