Positions
The institute believes unions impede reforms necessary for high student achievement in spite of the fact that many highly unionized states have high student achievement. The institute attempts to frame the issue by releasing a study which reinterpreted union strength in several states with different criteria. The new interpretation states that states such as Massachusetts, Delaware, and Maryland, which have outpaced the rest of the country in student achievement gains, do not have unions that are as strong as conventionally believed. It suggests that the student achievement gains are in spite of high union membership and due to weak union power although there is no evidence which proves so. Many critics say the study is "laughable", "silly", and "flawed".
Read more about this topic: Thomas B. Fordham Institute
Famous quotes containing the word positions:
“An ... important antidote to American democracy is American gerontocracy. The positions of eminence and authority in Congress are allotted in accordance with length of service, regardless of quality. Superficial observers have long criticized the United States for making a fetish of youth. This is unfair. Uniquely among modern organs of public and private administration, its national legislature rewards senility.”
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“The season developed and matured. Another year’s installment of flowers, leaves, nightingales, thrushes, finches, and such ephemeral creatures, took up their positions where only a year ago others had stood in their place when these were nothing more than germs and inorganic particles. Rays from the sunrise drew forth the buds and stretched them into long stalks, lifted up sap in noiseless streams, opened petals, and sucked out scents in invisible jets and breathings.”
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“... liberal intellectuals ... tend to have a classical theory of politics, in which the state has a monopoly of power; hoping that those in positions of authority may prove to be enlightened men, wielding power justly, they are natural, if cautious, allies of the “establishment.””
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)