Purpose: Teachers unions in the United States are increasingly taking up issues of equity and justice. While there is a growing and robust body of scholarship on leading for equity, unions are rarely included as sources of education leadership. This creates an opportunity to not only consider unions in these equity efforts, but also re-shape our…

A growing body of research has documented the uneven distribution of teacher quality across and within school districts. This paper focuses on the effect of the seniority-based transfer rules in collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) on teacher sorting. Specifically, as the seniority-preferred transfer rules in CBAs allow the more experienced…

I examine whether the impact of the Great Recession on school district spending, the allocation of resources, and student achievement varied depending on the strength of state's teachers' unions. Employing a diff-in-diff-in-diff identification strategy, I find that school districts in states with strong teachers' unions experienced significantly…

As children grow and develop, child care workers play a vital role in fostering learning and providing support in a safe and nurturing environment. High-quality child care jobs, where workers are valued and respected, benefit both workers and the children and families they serve. Unfortunately, the United States has historically undervalued the…

Educational policy research on teacher unionization in the United States has been dominated by two theoretical perspectives: "rent-seeking" and "teacher voice." While bringing valuable insights to bear, these views have mutated into rigid and often ideologically charged alternatives with strong normative claims about teacher…

Across the country, paraprofessionals in cities are primarily Black and Latina women, and they are far more likely than teachers to live in the district and even the school zone where they work. However the percentages of Black teachers in major city school districts across the nation have declined, while the percentages of census-designated…

Empirical evidence on the effects of compensation reform is somewhat scarce. Most U.S. public school teachers are paid according to rigid schedules that determine pay based solely on seniority and academic credentials. In unionized school districts, these schedules are set by collective bargaining agreements. In 2011 when the Wisconsin state…

In "The Teacher Insurgency," Leo Casey addresses how the unexpected wave of recent teacher strikes has had a dramatic impact on American public education, teacher unions, and the larger labor movement. Casey explains how this uprising was not only born out of opposition to government policies that underfunded public schools and…

The paper empirically examines labor-management communication concerning in-house training programs and its relation to the actual on- and off-the-job training policy and wage structure. Using governmental datasets from Japan, we study how different labor-management communication institutions may affect the training interests of employers and…

Recent union-supported teachers' walkouts and strikes across several U.S. states and cities highlighted union-led and grassroots efforts to amplify teachers' voices. Yet, the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, "Janus v. AFSCME, Council 31," provides a strength test for teachers' unions and members engaging in social justice/equity work…

In this paper, we draw upon in-depth interviews with teachers and administrators in 18 unionized charter schools around the country to investigate teachers' motivations for unionization. Our results suggest that while mismanagement and distrust are often the proximate cause of charter unionization efforts, both material and purposive…

In January 2023, the AAUP announced the establishment of a special committee to review an apparent pattern of politically, racially, and ideologically motivated attacks on public higher education in Florida. Since then, the undersigned members of this special committee have interviewed more than forty faculty members and a former president at…

A central goal of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) is to protect academic freedom, tenure, and due process by assisting faculty governance bodies and AAUP chapters in their efforts to incorporate AAUP-recommended policies in faculty handbooks and collective bargaining agreements. This report provides a statistical analysis…

In this article, I examine the relationship between unionism and academic freedom as revealed by 50 years of reports by the American Association of University Professors' Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure. Written following investigations of significant and/or intractable situations, the reports demonstrate the complex interactions…

We investigate the role of teachers' unions in state policymaking in the context of "No Child Left Behind." Our analyses of panel data show that political party control and region moderate the influence of teachers' unions in the adoption of accountability policies by states. Our analyses of marginal effects show that teachers' unions…