Teacher unions have long played a key role in not just classrooms but also in local, state and national politics. The strength of their influence does vary by state, combined with legal rulings and challenges resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Smiling woman with shoulder-length wavy brown-and-gray hair wearing a pink sweater, seated indoors near large windows with a softly blurred background. — Rebecca Jacobsen is a professor at MSU's College of Education.

Researchers last evaluated teacher union strength in 2012; now, over a decade later, Michigan State University researchers have found teacher unions seem to be weakening as more groups seek to shape education. Compared to 2012, 45 states and Washington, D.C. experienced a decline in the percentage of K-12 teachers who were union members.

The new report — published by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute — found the strongest proxies of union strength are membership rates and resources.

Some states have also experienced significant changes since 2012 in their ranking strength, but Michigan remains in the top 20, moving up two spots to 18.

“We often assume the teachers’ unions are the most influential actors in state education politics, but that narrative is no longer true in many places,” said Rebecca Jacobsen, a professor in the Department of Educational Administration at MSU’s College of Education. Jacobsen conducted the research with Sandy Frost Waldron, who received her doctorate from MSU’s College of Education.

Methodology

To determine strength rankings and how states changed, the researchers identified five key areas of teacher union strength, each with respective subcategories for evaluation. These areas included:

Resources and membership
Involvement in politics
Labor and bargaining policies
Policy wins and losses
Perceived influence (measured via a survey of actors with knowledge of education policymaking in each state)

From these measures, overall state rankings were calculated through a multistep aggregation process where each category had the same evaluation weight.

Findings

In terms of the states, Vermont and California were found to have the strongest teacher unions by a significant margin. Across the board, states that scored high did so across all five categories, while conversely, states rounding out the bottom 10 scored low on all categories.

Since 2012, nine states moved 10 or more positions in either direction, while as many as 18 only changed by three positions — so it means influence significantly varies by state.

The relationships among the categories also suggest interesting trends:

Union resources and memberships correlated most highly to involvement in politics, suggesting state unions with more members engage highly in politics.
Resources and membership also correlated to labor and bargaining policies, as well as perceived influence, suggesting organizational strength can bring favorable policies and positive perceptions.
As policy outcomes least correlated to labor and bargaining, states can have a favorable environment and lack policy wins. Alternatively, unions can achieve policy wins despite a negative political environment.

Implications

When policy leaders in each state were asked who was most influential in their state, less than one-third named the teacher's union. This research suggests that other actors in the arena now often play a prominent role in state education politics.

In the 2012 report, four of the 10 strongest unions were in Democratic trifectas, wherein the Democratic Party controls the governorship with majorities in both legislative chambers — and now that has doubled to eight states with Democratic trifectas. Political makeup remains a major force. While membership and revenue matter, states with more poverty often have unions with less power.

Teacher unions have long been considered the “800-pound gorilla” of education politics. Even if some of their power is slipping, they continue to influence state education policy, and this research suggests there are many other actors at play and, in some states, they may matter even more.

“What stands out to me is the growth of these other groups and yet we know relatively little about them. While teacher unions continue to be influential, we must also now turn our attention to the wide array of groups seeking to advance their own ideas about what education ought to look like in each state,” Jacobsen said.

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