A new analysis from the Progressive Policy Institute, a center-left think tank, finds that states with stronger teachers’ unions tend to score worse on early-literacy policy and post weaker reading outcomes than states with weaker unions.
According to the analysis, eight of the 10 states that scored among the worst in PPI’s assessment of early-literacy policies had powerful teachers’ unions. Among the top 60% of states by early-literacy policy score, only four had strong unions.
Mississippi, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina and Indiana — all Republican-leaning states with weak unions — ranked among the states with the best literacy outcomes. Maine, New York, Illinois, Hawaii, Washington and Rhode Island, all Democratic-leaning states, ranked among the worst.
The pattern isn’t absolute. Maryland, a blue state with a strong teachers’ union, has posted strong reading results, while South Dakota, a red state with a weaker union, has struggled. Those exceptions suggest union strength and party control alone don’t fully explain a state’s reading performance.
Mississippi as a Model
Rachel Canter, PPI’s director of education policy, conducted the analysis with colleagues by comparing rankings of teacher-union strength against states’ early-literacy policy scores. Canter also helped design the slate of educational reforms in Mississippi that lifted the state from among the worst in the nation for educational outcomes to among the best.
“Democrats, however, don’t often ask me how to replicate Mississippi’s success,” Canter said. “They ask if it’s possible at all, given the power of teachers’ unions in their home states.”
Canter said teachers’ unions exert significant influence over both educational policy and how that policy is carried out in classrooms, which she said can make schools in states with stronger unions slower to adapt to challenges or adopt new methods.
Mississippi’s reforms included kindergarten-through-third-grade literacy screenings, literacy coaches, individual reading plans, and holding back third-graders who failed the state reading test. The state paired those measures with science-based reading instruction, increased teacher training and tougher licensing requirements.
Canter said such changes can be difficult to enact in states with influential teachers’ unions, where labor representatives have argued the reforms place undue burdens on educators.
A Partisan Divide, With Exceptions
Many of the states that underperformed in the PPI study also have Democratic leadership. Teachers’ unions spend hundreds of millions of dollars each election cycle supporting Democratic candidates and left-of-center policies.
“States dominated by Democrats have been slower to embrace similar reforms,” Canter said. “Organized labor might explain some of this gap.”
Several Republican-led Southern states have adopted educational reforms similar to Mississippi’s, and those same states dominated PPI’s rankings of the states with the best student literacy outcomes.
