el gato malo (@boriquagato)

i spent some more time looking at school data in the US and the results are striking. first, i went to the nccft data from the teachers unions. they helpfully rank their own strength and break states down into 5 categories 1 being strongest and 5 being weakest. you can get the data here: https://nccft.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/20121029-Union-Strength-Full-Report_7_0.pdf i then went to the burbio school opening rankings that measure how much in person instruction is going on. this data varies widely with IA, WY, MT, and FL all at 99.9% or higher and OR, CA, MD all under 17.5%. you can get that data here. https://cai.burbio.com/school-opening-tracker/ the data that emerges is a barbell with a "messy middle." the tier 1 union states are only 46% open. the tier 5 have managed 89%. the middle is all pretty similar around 70%. i doubt one could find any statistically significant difference there. we can draw some meaningful conclusions from this: states with very strong teacher's unions have kept their kids out of school. states with very weak teacher's unions have re-opened to nearly twice the extent. this is not about covid, it's about corrupt collective bargaining run amok in states where the teachers unions are strong enough to dominate politics. i would bet we could get a FAR stronger variance and quite a tight correlation if we could see this at county level where these negotiations actually take place. it's long past time to stop letting the self interest of rapacious unions keep our children from learning. fund kids, not unions. schools are not too important to be left to the free market, they are too important no to be.