Bipartisan, But Unfounded - The Assault on Teachers’ Unions

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by McGucket

Explains how teachers’ unions face sustained bipartisan criticism and political attacks, drawing examples from governors, advocacy groups, media voices, and books. Argues that calls to restrict or abolish collective bargaining lack real empirical support. Contrasts partisan narratives with democratic principles protecting workers’ rights to form and join trade unions and frames collective bargaining as a counterbalance against concentrated power from business and government.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages5

Reading Time13 min

AccessFree to download

Teachers’ unions under bipartisan attack

Bipartisan criticism and public examples

The policy claims and perceived evidence gap

Complaints about hiring, discipline, and school reform

Democratic rationale for collective bargaining

Rights to unionize and countervailing power

Bipartisan, But Unfounded The Assault on Teachers’ Unions By Richard D. Kahlenberg Teachers’ unions are under unprecedented bipartisan attack. The drumbeat is relentless, from governors in Wisconsin and Ohio to the film directors of Waiting for “Superman” and The Lottery; from new lobbying groups like Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst and Wall Street’s Democrats for Education Reform to political columnists such as Jonathan Alter and George Will; from new books like political scientist Terry Moe’s Special Interest and entrepreneurial writer Steven Brill’s Class Warfare to even, at times, members of the Obama adminis- central impediment to educational progress in the United States. Part of the assault is unsurprising given its partisan origins. Republicans have long been critical, going back to at least 1996, when presidential candidate Bob Dole scolded teachers’ unions:“If education were a war, you would be losing it. If it were a business, you would be driving it into bankruptcy. If it were a patient, it would be dying.” If you’re a Republican who wants to win elections, going after teachers’ unions makes parochial sense. According to Terry Moe, the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) gave 95 percent of their contributions to Democrats in federal elections between ILLUSTRAT IONS BY NENAD JAKESEVIC tration. The consistent message is that teachers’ unions are the Richard D. Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, is the author or editor of several books, including Rewarding Strivers: Helping Low-Income Students Succeed in College; Tough Liberal: Albert Shankerand the Battles Over Schools, Unions, Race, and Democracy; and All Together Now: Creating Middle-Class Schools through Public School Choice. This essay draws from the author’s previous articles in the New Republic, Slate, the Washington Post, and Education Next. 1989 and 2010.1 The nakedly partisan nature of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s attack on public sector collective bargaining was exposed when he exempted from his legislation two unions that supported him politically: one representing police officers and the other representing firefighters. What’s new and particularly disturbing is that partisan Republicans are now joined by many liberals and Democrats in attacking teachers’ unions. Davis Guggenheim, an avowed liberal who 14 AMERICAN EDUCATOR | WINTER 2011–2012 directed Al Gore’s anti–global warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth and Barack Obama’s convention biopic, was behind Waiting for “Superman.” Normally liberal New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof regularly attacks teachers’ unions, as does Steven Brill, who contributed to the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, yet compares teachers’ union leaders to Saddam Hussein loyalists and South African apartheid officials. A string of current and former Democratic school superintendents (including New York City’s Joel Klein and San Diego’s Alan Bersin) have blamed unions for education’s woes. Even President Obama strongly supports nonunionized charter schools and famously applauded the firing of every single teacher in Central Falls, Rhode Island. The litany of complaints about teachers’ unions is familiar. They make it “virtually impossible to get bad teachers out of the classroom,” says Moe.2 Critics claim they oppose school choice, oppose merit pay, and oppose efforts to have excellent teachers“assigned” to high-poverty schools where they are needed most. Growing Democratic support of these criticisms has emboldened conservatives to go even further and call for the complete abolition of collective bargaining for teachers a half-century after it started.* Conservative education professor Jay Greene pines fora “return to the pre–collective bargaining era.”3 Teachers’ unions“are at the heart” of our education problems, Moe says.4 “As long as the teachers’ unions remain powerful,” he writes, the “basic requi

FAQs

What argument does the essay make about attacks on teachers’ unions?

The essay argues that teachers’ unions are under relentless bipartisan attack, but the core claims against them lack real empirical support.

Why does the essay cite universal human rights regarding unions?

It cites Article 23 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights to support the democratic right of employees to form and join trade unions for protecting their interests.

How does the essay describe the role of collective bargaining in a democracy?

Collective bargaining is presented as important not only for advancing individual interests, but also for giving unions power to act as a countervailing force against big business and big government.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by McGucket