Ed deformers lie constantly. When called on it, they never "accept responsibility,"

they just move on to the next lie.

In this, their modus operandi reflects typical right-wing tactics.

Case in point:

In the movie Waiting for Superman, nominated for an Oscar as the best Documentary of 2010, the following statement is made:

" ...in Illinois, 1 in 57 doctors loses his or her medical license, and 1 in 97 attorneys loses his or her law license, but only 1 teacher in 2500 has ever lost his or her credentials."

While looking for the source of this claim, which is repeated without citation in the movie and its companion book, I came upon a 2007 newspaper article by Scott Reeder of the Small Newspaper Group (which, incidentally, is a *different* claim, about a 6-year period, showing how careless ed deformers are even in passing on their own bogus claims):

"During the past six years, 1 in 2,500 Illinois educators have lost their teaching credentials through suspension, revocation or surrender. By comparison, during the same period 1 in 57 doctors practicing in Illinois lost their medical licenses..."

http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2010/12/fact-checking-waiting-for-superman.html


1/57 doctors' licenses revoked = 1.75%.

However, checking the easily obtainable statistics about revocation of doctors' licenses in Illinois, we find this is a LIE.

If you go to the 2007 & 2006 reports, find the Illinois page, the data is right there.

http://www.fsmb.org/pub_basummary.html

2002-2007 an average of 112.8 MD licenses were revoked from an average population of 33,428 practicing licensed physicians.

This = an average of 0.33% of licenses revoked yearly.

In no year is anything like 1.75% of licenses revoked.

The number given for attorneys is also completely bogus.


Ed deformers lie constantly, blatantly, purposefully, & when called on it, they never acknowledge it, but simply move on to new lies.

Straight out of the right-wing playbook.

As for the 1/2500 teachers fired in Illinois, we can't check that, since there is no similar database for Illinois teachers.

So people have to believe -- or not -- the propaganda the deformers spew through the media 24/7.

But since they are proven liars, why would any intelligent person believe a thing they say?

...since some attorneys are just as happy to go after other attorneys as anyone else.

Doctors tend to be a little less aggressive in policing their profession.

But I'd love to see if actual numbers bear that out (and also corrected for attrition).

According to data reported by the American Bar Association, 26 lawyers in Illinois were disbarred in 2009, out of a total of 58,457 - in some cases, by mutual consent.

So the annual rate of attorneys disbarred in Illinois is about .04% - meaning that approximately four out of 10,000 lawyers lose their licenses to practice, rather than one out of 97 as claimed in Waiting for Superman. The number involuntarily disbarred is only ten out 58,457 -approximately 0.017%, nearly a hundred times smaller than the 1% figure cited in the film.

http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2010/12/fact-checking-waiting-for-superman.html


Ed deformers lie constantly.

I took the trouble to go into the data on IL docs and do the math for 6 years as A poster made a big deal because the refutation didn't include the full 6 years.

Well, now it does & THE DEFORMERS' CLAIM IS STILL A FUCKING LIE.

Keep changing the subject and, unless the opponent is really tenacious, you throw them off-balance and win by default.

Fascist tactics from way back.

Why anyone would entrust their children to such people, I have no clue.

Dirty as mud. Will lie, cheat & steal to get what they want. Take money to make false claims. Looking to profit on changing the education system. None of their remedies have improved outcomes a bit, but they've sure filled the deformers' pockets.

'Course, they're right-wing based as well...

First of all, you didn't link to 2002 data, your link speaks to only 2003-2007 data, so we're not comparing apples to apples in that regard.

But: even assuming you've got a good number for the average number of MD licenses revoked in a year, you'll need to multiply that number by six to account for "During the past six years..." and then divide that into your total number of docs.

From your link for IL, the average would be (49+125+173+134+122)/5= 120.6 MD licenses revoked annually, on average.

So add that to your existing numbers, perhaps, to get a good guess of a six-year total: 49+125+173+134+122+120 = 723 licenses revoked in six years.

...What percentage is that of doctors? Taking the biggest number from your link (35,232) to get the smallest percentage possible, for the sake of argument, it's 723/35,232 = 0.021, or 2.1%.

This is, of course, an estimate, since we don't have 2002 numbers; it's entirely possible the number of docs who lost their license was the smallest of any year, much smaller than our 120 number, since less than half that lost licenses in 2003. That possibility leaves 1.75% as a very good possibility.

Hopefully someone can check my work. :D

-Robb, who was arguably not a math major.

& find illinois by yourself.

second, your math skills suck.

Over the 6 year period there was an average of 112.8 license revocations per year. You get this number by adding the license revocations/year and dividing by 6.

Over the 6 year period there were an average of 33,428 praticing licensed physicians every year. You get this number the same way.

To get the revocations as a % of the population, you divide the number of revocations by the population. The number is .00337, round to .00334 & convert to a percentage = 0.34%.

Just looking at the average number of revocations & population you can see IT CAN'T BE ANYWHERE NEAR WHAT YOU CLAIM.

113 v. 33,400?

You added up 6 years' worth of revocations & divided them by one years' population.

I think yours might, but OK. :hi:

ETA: Ah, I found 2002. My mistake. Unfortunately for your argument, the number is 74.

:D

divide that number by the population of physicians in 2007, which is what *you* did.

If you want to get *that* number, you need to know the total number of "unique" individual physicians over the 6 year period.

*That* number isn't in the data.

The yearly rate of revocation is never higher than 0.5% in any year.

You're barking up the wrong tree, I'm afraid. There's another thread on this topic with better math; I'll leave you to kick this as long as you'd like, though. :hi:

physicians practicing in the 6 year period & no such calculation can be made.

Nor are any statistics about incidence typically calculated in such a way.

If that's where the deformers got their number then their math is as bad as yours.

But thanks for proving my initial point.

They never take responsibility, they just move on to the next talking point.



Every year, an average of 0.34% of practicing physicians in Illinois have their licenses revoked.

Your "correction" amounts to multiplying .34 x 6.

Why not by 10, or 20, or 30 years? If you multiplied by 100 years the percent would be ginormous!!!!

The fact remains, less than 1% of MDs have their license revoked in a year, and that's about the same as the percent of tenured teachers who get fired.

Completely irrelevant clouding of the facts.