Friday, February 20, 2015
"NYT Columnist Blames Scott Walker for Teacher Layoffs That Occurred Before He Was Governor"
Unfortunately, very few will likely see the correction...
On the Weekly Standard website, John McCormack tells us about this:
"But the big error in Collins's piece is her claim that "those layoffs happened because Walker cut state aid to education." As you can see in the excerpt above, Collins is talking about teacher layoffs that occurred in 2010. Walker did not become governor until 2011.
The truth is that Walker's reforms actually saved teachers' jobs. Right before the 2012 Wisconsin recall election, Walker's Democratic opponent Tom Barrett couldn't name a single school that had been hurt by Walker's policies. When Walker's 2014 Democratic opponent Mary Burke was asked to name any schools hurt by Walker's collective bargaining reform, she relayed an anecdote she'd heard secondhand about one school. Burke's story didn't check out, and the superintendent of that school wrote a letter telling Burke she didn't know what she was talking about.
That's a good reminder for Gail Collins (and the rest of us): Always check your facts."
