Connection between collective bargaining for teachers and education quality?

I wanted to find out how many states prohibit collective bargaining by public employees and how they fare in education ranking. Obviously, just because a state doesn't allow collective bargaining AND they rank low doesn't mean one necessarily causes the other. But if all non-collective bargaining states suck at educating their kids or if they get great value for their dollar, it would be good to know. There are certainly other factors, but it would be interesting. I'm not in education or statistics...just quick research online.

Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, W Virginia don't appear to allow teacher collective bargaining and/or strikes

My findings: non-collective bargaining states don't pay their teachers well and they also suck at educating their kids.

There are six states that don't allow collective bargaining by teachers, seven if you count Virginia which apparently does have collective bargaining but prohibits strikes. I averaged those and compare with Wisconsin (instead of averaging all collective bargaining states which would paint a clearer picture but take more time). Only in one category that I looked at (8th grade writing) do they on average barely creep up into the upper half of states (avg #22 ranking for writing). As bad as the average of the 7 states is, they were pulled up by Virginia which is in the middle in terms of spending on teachers and per capita spending (rank #27 and 28 respectively) but is in top 15 in most education categories I looked at. Without Virginia, the other 6 would really look bad. Virginia seems to be getting good value...but they appear to be a collective bargaining state...just no strikes.

Rankings are out of 51 jurisdictions (states plus DC):

AVERAGE TEACHER SALARY: Wisconsin ranks 20th; average of 7 non-collective bargaining states (NCBS) ranks 36 out of 51.

PERCENT WITH HIGH SCHOOL DIPLOMA OR BETTER: Wisconsin ranks 13; NCBS 41 out of 51

PERCENT WITH BACHELORS DEGREE OR BETTER: Wisconsin ranks 25; NCBS 38

PER CAPITA EDUCATION SPENDING: Wisconsin 12; NCBS average ranking is 36

8th GRADE READING RANK: Wisconsin no study number; NCBS average rank is 22 (pulled up by Virginia)

8th GRADE MATH: Wisconsin soars to 7; NCBS sinks to 32, average of the 7

OVERALL STATE EDUCATION QUALITY: Wisconsin 21; NCBS 34

So is there a link between teacher pay and student performance? This wasn't exhaustive or even partially complete and maybe not fair...but you have to generally say that states with low teacher pay also have low student performance. I see no reason to think that if you take away collective bargaining and pay teachers less than you'll somehow have a better education system. I see the opposite, potentially. WHY ISN'T THIS PART OF THE DISCUSSION ABOUT TEACHERS AND UNIONS?

(The overall ranking comes from a study with forward by jeb bush. no idea about the credibility of the study, it's the first one I saw, but the bush endorsement should suggest I'm not cherrypicking (I'm blindly choosing...is that cherrypicking?))

http://www.alec.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Report_Card_on_American_Education

http://www.enotes.com/everyday-law-encyclopedia/teacher-s-unions-collective-bargaining

http://teacherportal.com/teacher-salaries-by-state

http://www.statemaster.com/cat/edu-education

It showed which states have collective bargaining and it listed the high school graduation rates for each state.
I can't seem to find it right now ;(

the five states that ban collective bargaining high school seniors places 50th, 49th, 48th 47 and i think 45. I am not positive but I think they were the carolinas, georgia...and not sure of the other two...but both from the south.

a MAJOR point of discussion. What are we doing to the education system? What are the effects of stepping on teachers financially and socially like has been done? Who thinks the system will be better?