Why strong teachers unions are death on public education

In the latest sign that powerful teachers unions make for weak schools, a study out of the left-leaning Progressive Policy Institute shows that states where the American Federation of Teachers or National Education Association wield great power overwhelmingly score worse in student literacy than ones where the unions have less sway.The reason’s obvious: Unions prioritize their own political power and their members’ privileges, not the children’s needs; that’s not their job.And when government-employee unions have too much power, the public suffers.Thus eight of the 10 states with the worst student literacy scores are blue ones with strong teachers’ unions.Yes, other factors matter, too: Five Republican states and one swing state have relatively poor literacy scores; four Democratic states are among the 23 top-performing.But the union factor is huge.

Rachel Canter is PPI’s director of Education Policy and an architect of the Mississippi Miracle that’s seen that state make huge gains in literacy instruction by paying close heed to the science of reading; she sums up the study: “We found a strong, negative correlation between the two — the more powerful the unions, the fewer literacy-policy principles the state had adopted.”Reform requires teachers to do things differently; unions insist on charging a high price for any change — and hate any standards that might expose some teachers as not up to the job.New York — home to the powerful United Federation of Teachers and New York State United Teachers — ranks among the least literate, with over half of 3rd- through 5th-graders failing reading proficiency exams.Gov.Kathy Hochul tried to work with the unions to help the kids; it was a fiasco: She paid NYSUT millions to design a “science of reading” curriculum, only for it to produce garbage.No wonder New York fourth-graders now lag their Mississippi peers in reading.And pity poor Los Angeles, whose teachers union is an affiliate of both the A...