One of the things President Trump ran on in 2024 was dismantling the Department of Education. The idea being: Bring education back to the local level so parents have much more say in their children's education. But there may be a bonus to that: Taking education local may help rein in powerful teachers' unions that seem to control many large cities in blue states, and now there may be evidence linking that unholy alliance to student outcomes.

According to data from the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI), states with stronger, more influential teachers' unions tend to have weaker student performance in reading, and also tend to adopt fewer of the policies that improve student reading scores. In ten states where students had the lowest reading scores, eight of them had strong teachers' unions. 

Of the states studied, Mississippi, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Indiana are all Republican-led states that have weak teachers' unions, but the best student reading scores. States like Maine, New York, Illinois, Hawaii, Washington, and Rhode Island had some of the worst reading scores and some of the most notoriously strong teachers' unions. But it's not the pattern everywhere. Maryland has strong teachers' unions but also high reading scores, while South Dakota has weaker unions but lower test scores.

Rachel Canter is PPI's Director of Education Policy, who has spent almost twenty years in Mississippi pushing for reforms that have helped that state's reading scores go from some of the lowest in the nation to some of the highest. She spoke of her work in Mississippi:

“Democrats, however, don’t often ask me how to replicate Mississippi’s success. They ask if it’s possible at all, given the power of teachers’ unions in their home states.”

Canter went on to explain that blue-state teachers' unions also have much more influence in how policy is implemented in classrooms, and can make those states slower to adapt to or take on new and improved teaching methods.

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But maybe taking a look at just one of these teachers' unions may give us an idea of what those blue-state teachers are spending their time on instead of educating children. In May of 2024, the Chicago Teachers' Union, in its collective bargaining proposal, included these demands: 

Aside from wage issues, what does any of this have to do with the price of cheese? What they should be concerned with is that only around 40 percent of Chicago Public School students read at grade level, and 25 percent are proficient in math. In New York, more than half of students from third to fifth grade failed reading proficiency exams.

Then there is the fact that teachers' unions spend millions to get Democrats elected to push leftist ideology. Canter stated:

"States dominated by Democrats have been slower to embrace similar reforms (like those in Mississippi). Organized labor might explain some of this gap."

If the only thing dismantling the Department of Education does is take blue-state teachers' unions down a notch, it will be the best thing to happen to public education.