The Impact of Wealthy Teacher Unions on Public Education (Research Paper Sample)

Strong Teacher Unions, Weak Boards of Education and Low Student Performance
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Strong Teacher Unions, Weak Boards of Education and Low Student Performance
Teacher Unions are special and influential agents formed to defend and protect the rights and welfare of teachers in the US. All legislations affecting the rights and welfare of teachers and learners in the US has been lobbied and supported by these organizations. Teacher unions are not political organizations, but are labor organizations responsible for securing benefits for teachers and shaping the way education works. Fair-share refers to the fees charged by the union from non-union members for benefitting from collective bargaining and lobbying activities of the union. In the US, fair-share fees ranges from $800-$1000 (Moe & Wiborg, 2017). This money amounts to millions of dollars, considering that teachers K-12 teachers are the third largest members of the public sector in the country (Han & Keefe, 2022). More money means more political power, meaning that as teacher unions have wealthy teacher unions are powerful political influencers. However, as teacher unions have been increasing wealth at the expense of the “fair-share” and earning political mileage, they have also been drifting away from their mandate of strengthening the boards of education. The goal of this paper is to examine and outline how public sector unions, specifically teacher unions have amassed wealth and become more political while weakening the boards of education in the US.