In "Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31", the U.S. Supreme Court ended the practice of enabling public-sector unions to collect "fair-share" or "agency" fees from employees who decline to join. Although federal law prohibits requiring workers to join a union as a…

Teacher quality is the most important school-related factor influencing student achievement, and closing the growing pay gap between teachers and other college graduate professionals is critical to public education. This report provides an update to a series that has tracked public school teacher wages and compensation over the last two decades.…

Because charter school principals are granted more autonomy and discretion than principals of traditional public schools, it is imperative to search for the attributes of principals that may improve charter school performance. This study examines the relationship between principals' collective bargaining and charter school effectiveness. Using…

There is considerable speculation and some empirical evidence that teacher collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) in urban school districts are more restrictive to district administrators than CBAs in other districts. We build on prior work by comparing urban with nonurban CBAs in three states--California, Michigan, and Washington--and, for a set…

We examine more than 1,000 collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) in place across California, Michigan, and Washington. We investigate the prevalence of a set of 43 key provisions between and within these states, providing the first comprehensive comparison of CBA terms using data drawn from economically and demographically different districts,…

Sweden has experienced increasing educational inequity levels within its highly decentralized school system. With a reduced capacity to bargain collectively, the two Swedish teacher trade unions, the Swedish Teachers' Union (Lärarförbundet) and the National Union of Teachers in Sweden (Lärarnas Riksförbund), have sought to extend their role in…

In light of the Pennsylvania's most recent pension cuts and the challenges the state faces in attracting and retaining qualified teachers, this report asks two primary questions in this study: (1) How does teacher pay compare with the pay of other comparable workers in Pennsylvania--that is, are Pennsylvania public school teachers underpaid (which…

This report compares average rates of frequent teacher absence (more than 10 days) for teachers with and without union or union-like contracts in traditional public schools and charter schools. The study's rationale is that such absences substantively harm students and cost taxpayers billions of dollars. It finds that teachers contractually…

Research confirms what common sense dictates: Students learn less when their teachers aren't there. According to multiple studies, a ten-day increase in teacher absence results in at least ten fewer days of learning for students. Clearly, some absences are unavoidable--teachers are only human. But compared to their counterparts in other industries…

Rising health insurance costs have been a source of fiscal distress for school districts. In this paper, I closely examine data from the National Compensation Survey (NCS) of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to address a few basic questions: (1) Are district costs for teachers' health insurance higher, on average, than employer costs for…

Charter schools see as many as one in four teachers leave annually, and recent evidence attributes much of this turnover to provisions affected by collective bargaining processes and state laws such as salary, benefits, job security, and working hours. There have been many recent efforts to improve teacher voice in charter schools (Kahlenberg…

The purpose of this study was to identify and describe the typical terms and conditions of employment in 2012-2013 negotiated agreements in Pennsylvania school districts, and to determine if there was a relationship between enrollment size and 5 selected terms and conditions of employment: base salary; highest salary; teacher contribution for one…

About 12 percent of all charter schools have bargaining agreements. Why do charter schools unionize? What is in these charter school contracts? Can they be considered innovative or models for union reform? And how do they compare to traditional district/union teacher contracts? Center on Reinventing Public Education legal analyst Mitch Price…

In recent years, debates over school reform have increasingly focused on the role of teacher unions in the changing landscape of American K-12 education. On one hand, critics argue that these unions, using their powerful grip on education politics and policy to great effect, bear primary responsibility for blocking states' efforts to put into…

This study compares the succession of urban principals working under negotiated collective bargaining agreements and conferred "memorandums of understanding" with particular school boards in three of Ohio's major cities: Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Toledo. Relying on the following information: tenure, licensure status, professional…