This paper summarizes the research on the relationship between teacher unionization and educational outcomes at the state, district, school, and individual (student) levels. Although teachers are the largest organized professionals in the United States, much of educational policy literature has ignored unionization as a subject of study. An…

Chicago teachers voted last week to suspend a 7-day-old strike, sending some 350,000 students back to the classroom and paving the way for the teaching force to vote on a tentative contract. But for many in the Windy City, the contract has raised another potentially tall hurdle: how the cash-strapped district will manage to pay for it. District…

A strike last week by some 29,000 teachers in Chicago pushed long-simmering tensions over deeply divisive school improvement ideas--including changes in teacher evaluation and the takeover or closure of underperforming schools--into the national spotlight. A framework for a tentative agreement emerged last Friday, and the union's house of…

An increase in teacher hiring in recent years has led some observers to posit a link to the waves of pink slips districts are now sending across the U.S. Between the 1999-2000 and the 2007-08 school years, the teacher force increased at more than double the rate of K-12 student enrollments. Hiring teachers to reduce class sizes remains a…

"Education Matters" is the monthly newsletter of the Association of American Educators (AAE), an organization dedicated to advancing the American teaching profession through personal growth, professional development, teacher advocacy and protection. This issue of the newsletter includes: (1) Quality Counts: Doesn't It? (Kate Walsh and…

Describes Glenbard Township (Illinois) High School District's win/win solution to negotiating teacher contracts. The district's new cooperative approach succeeded because the negotiating team was expanded (weakening the influence of adversarial-minded negotiators), and the system's best teachers were part of the bargaining team. A standing…

This article delineates areas of conflict that might arise due to the Education for All Handicapped Children Act's proposed implementation at the local education agency level. A strategy for the future development of federal educational policy is described. (CJ)

This working paper analyzes higher education faculty characteristics in Mexico and the United States. The first section describes and compares Mexican and U.S. faculty characteristics and conditions, including total number of faculty, student-teacher ratios, full- versus part-time status, rank, tenure, average salaries, gender and ethnicity, and…