IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecoedu/v35y2013icp93-103.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

State teacher union strength and student achievement

Author

Listed:
  • Lott, Johnathan
  • Kenny, Lawrence W.

Abstract

A new and very small literature has provided evidence that students have lower test scores in larger school districts and in districts in which the district's teachers union has negotiated a contract that is more favorable to the district's teachers. The teachers’ unions at the state and national levels contribute a great deal of money to candidates for state and federal offices. This gives the unions some influence in passing (defeating) bills that would help (harm) the state's teachers. We introduce two novel measures of the strength of the state-wide teachers union: union dues per teacher and union expenditures per student. These reflect the key role of political influence for state-wide unions. We provide remarkably strong evidence that students in states with strong teachers unions have lower proficiency rates than students in states with weak state-wide teacher unions.

Suggested Citation

  • Lott, Johnathan & Kenny, Lawrence W., 2013. "State teacher union strength and student achievement," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 93-103.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:35:y:2013:i:c:p:93-103
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2013.03.006
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272775713000496
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econedurev.2013.03.006?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brunner, Eric J. & Squires, Tim, 2013. "The bargaining power of teachers’ unions and the allocation of school resources," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 15-27.
    2. Southwick, Lawrence Jr & Gill, Indermit S., 1997. "Unified salary schedule and student SAT scores: Adverse effects of adverse selection in the market for secondary school teachers," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 143-153, April.
    3. Eberts, Randall W & Stone, Joe A, 1986. "Teacher Unions and the Cost of Public Education," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 24(4), pages 631-643, October.
    4. Terry M. Moe, 2009. "Collective Bargaining and The Performance of the Public Schools," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(1), pages 156-174, January.
    5. Peltzman, Sam, 1993. "The Political Economy of the Decline of American Public Education," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(1), pages 331-370, April.
    6. Rose, Heather & Sonstelie, Jon, 2010. "School board politics, school district size, and the bargaining power of teachers' unions," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(3), pages 438-450, May.
    7. Caroline Minter Hoxby, 1996. "How Teachers' Unions Affect Education Production," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 111(3), pages 671-718.
    8. Katharine O. Strunk, 2011. "Are Teachers' Unions Really to Blame? Collective Bargaining Agreements and Their Relationships with District Resource Allocation and Student Performance in California," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 6(3), pages 354-398, July.
    9. Randall W. Eberts, 1984. "Union Effects on Teacher Productivity," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 37(3), pages 346-358, April.
    10. Peltzman, Sam, 1996. "Political Economy of Public Education: Non-College-Bound Students," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39(1), pages 73-120, April.
    11. Kenny, Lawrence W & Schmidt, Amy B, 1994. "The Decline in the Number of School Districts in the U.S.: 1950-1980," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 79(1-2), pages 1-18, April.
    12. Michael F. Lovenheim, 2009. "The Effect of Teachers' Unions on Education Production: Evidence from Union Election Certifications in Three Midwestern States," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 27(4), pages 525-587, October.
    13. Husted, Thomas A & Kenny, Lawrence W, 2000. "Evidence on the Impact of State Government on Primary and Secondary Education and the Equity-Efficiency Trade-Off," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 43(1), pages 285-308, April.
    14. Randall W. Eberts & Joe A. Stone, 1987. "Teacher Unions and the Productivity of Public Schools," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 40(3), pages 354-363, April.
    15. Mark C. Berger & Eugenia F. Toma, 1994. "Variation in state education policies and effects on student performance," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(3), pages 477-491.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Fatoş Silman & Ahmet Güneyli & Osman Vaiz & Nedime Karasel-Ayda, 2021. "Comparative Analysis of North and South Cyprus’ Teachers’ Perceptions of Teachers’ Unions," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(1), pages 21582440209, January.
    2. Torberg Falch & Astrid Marie Jorde Sandsør & Bjarne Strøm, 2017. "Do Smaller Classes Always Improve Students’ Long-run Outcomes?," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 79(5), pages 654-688, October.
    3. Wagner, Gary A. & Elder, Erick M., 2021. "Campaigning for retirement: State teacher union campaign contributions and pension generosity," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    4. Cowen, Joshua M. & Strunk, Katharine O., 2015. "The impact of teachers’ unions on educational outcomes: What we know and what we need to learn," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 208-223.
    5. Corey A. DeAngelis & Christos Makridis, 2021. "Are School Reopening Decisions Related to Union Influence?," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 102(5), pages 2266-2284, September.
    6. Shi, Ying & Singleton, John D., 2019. "Expertise and Independence on Governing Boards: Evidence from School Districts," IZA Discussion Papers 12414, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Lyon, Melissa Arnold, 2021. "Heroes, villains, or something in between? How “Right to Work” policies affect teachers, students, and education policymaking," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    8. Cook, Jason & Lavertu, Stéphane & Miller, Corbin, 2021. "Rent-Seeking through collective bargaining: Teachers unions and education production☆," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    9. Bradley D. Marianno & Paul Bruno & Kathrine O. Strunk, 2021. "The Effect of Teachers’ Union Contracts on School District Efficiency: Longitudinal Evidence From California," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(1), pages 21582440209, February.
    10. Abadía Alvarado, Luz Karime & Gómez Soler, Silvia C. & Cifuentes González, Juanita, 2021. "The effect of teacher strikes on academic achievement: Evidence from Colombia," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cowen, Joshua M. & Strunk, Katharine O., 2015. "The impact of teachers’ unions on educational outcomes: What we know and what we need to learn," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 208-223.
    2. Cook, Jason & Lavertu, Stéphane & Miller, Corbin, 2021. "Rent-Seeking through collective bargaining: Teachers unions and education production☆," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    3. Bradley D. Marianno & Paul Bruno & Kathrine O. Strunk, 2021. "The Effect of Teachers’ Union Contracts on School District Efficiency: Longitudinal Evidence From California," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(1), pages 21582440209, February.
    4. Shi, Ying & Singleton, John D., 2019. "Expertise and Independence on Governing Boards: Evidence from School Districts," IZA Discussion Papers 12414, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Marianno, Bradley D. & Strunk, Katharine O., 2018. "The bad end of the bargain?: Revisiting the relationship between collective bargaining agreements and student achievement," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 93-106.
    6. Corey A. DeAngelis & Christos Makridis, 2021. "Are School Reopening Decisions Related to Union Influence?," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 102(5), pages 2266-2284, September.
    7. Joshua C. Hall & Donald J. Lacombe & Joylynn Pruitt, 2017. "Collective bargaining and school district test scores: evidence from Ohio bargaining agreements," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(1), pages 35-38, January.
    8. Michèle Belot & Dinand Webbink, 2010. "Do Teacher Strikes Harm Educational Attainment of Students?," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 24(4), pages 391-406, December.
    9. Cassandra M.D. Hart & Aaron J. Sojourner, 2015. "Unionization and Productivity: Evidence from Charter Schools," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(3), pages 422-448, July.
    10. Michael F. Lovenheim & Alexander Willén, 2019. "The Long-Run Effects of Teacher Collective Bargaining," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 292-324, August.
    11. Joshua Hall, 2007. "Local School Finance and Productive Efficiency: Evidence from Ohio," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 35(3), pages 289-301, September.
    12. Katharine O. Strunk & Sean F. Reardon, 2010. "Measuring the Strength of Teachers' Unions," Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics, , vol. 35(6), pages 629-670, December.
    13. Fatoş Silman & Ahmet Güneyli & Osman Vaiz & Nedime Karasel-Ayda, 2021. "Comparative Analysis of North and South Cyprus’ Teachers’ Perceptions of Teachers’ Unions," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(1), pages 21582440209, January.
    14. Barrow, Lisa & Rouse, Cecilia Elena, 2004. "Using market valuation to assess public school spending," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(9-10), pages 1747-1769, August.
    15. Baron, E. Jason, 2018. "The Effect of Teachers’ Unions on Student Achievement in the Short Run: Evidence from Wisconsin’s Act 10," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 40-57.
    16. Eric Brunner & Joshua Hyman & Andrew Ju, 2020. "School Finance Reforms, Teachers' Unions, and the Allocation of School Resources," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(3), pages 473-489, July.
    17. Jairo Núnez & Roberto Steiner & Ximena Cadena & Renata Pardo, 2002. "¿Cuáles Colegios Ofrecen Mejor Educación En Colombia?," Documentos CEDE 3796, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    18. Michael Baker, 2013. "Industrial actions in schools: strikes and student achievement," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 46(3), pages 1014-1036, August.
    19. Eunice S. Han, 2020. "The Myth of Unions’ Overprotection of Bad Teachers: Evidence from the District–Teacher Matched Data on Teacher Turnover," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(2), pages 316-352, April.
    20. Shawna Grosskopf & Kathy J. Hayes & Lori L. Taylor & William Weber, 1995. "On competition and school efficiency," Working Papers 9506, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Teacher unions; Student achievement; Student test scores; Teacher union dues; Unions;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • J5 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:35:y:2013:i:c:p:93-103. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/econedurev .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.