A Left-Wing Think Tank Just Delivered a Brutal Indictment of Teachers Unions

We didn’t need any more proof of the inefficacy of teachers unions, but a chart published by the Progressive Policy Institute, a center-left think tank, and featured in The Wall Street Journal is giving us even more. 

According to the chart, the power of a teachers union in each state appears to be inversely correlated with the adoption of key early-literacy reforms, associated with higher reading scores. In other words, when teachers unions have more of a say, their interests come before those of students, despite what their PR divisions might tell you. Meanwhile, states with significantly weaker teachers unions have embraced far more literacy reforms, and, in several cases, have seen major gains in student reading.

This chart is jaw-dropping

Teachers unions do not care about children. pic.twitter.com/EeBTWomtWD

— Compound248 💰 (@compound248) September 12, 2026

This is a classic example of the game of incentives. 

Teachers are supposed to care about their students, and many do. Teachers unions, on the other hand, are like any other large institution: they look out for their own bottom line. That means higher wages, lighter workloads, stronger job protections and, of course, lobbying government to secure all of it. A policy that might help students but require more work from teachers will therefore be fought by a union, because the union’s interests come first. Longer instructional time, tougher literacy training, new evaluation systems, merit-based pay, staffing flexibility or removing ineffective teachers may all require teachers to do more, learn more or give administrators more authority. That is precisely where union interests can collide with student interests.

It is also a striking example of their monopoly power over labor, that few who rail against monopolies actually acknowledge. 

However, where localities do not have to deal with a teachers union, where officials have greater freedom to make decisions and fewer contractual restrictions, they can reform schools more freely. Even within a government-run system, that creates something closer to a free-market model: teachers are more often evaluated on individual merit, schools can respond more quickly to students’ needs, and administrators have greater room to experiment with what actually works.They still must navigate local-government bureaucracy, but they do not also have to negotiate every meaningful reform with a union whose incentives can run directly against the interests of students.

This chart is one more reason to keep chipping away at the power of teachers unions, and any other institution that puts its own power ahead of the people it is supposed to serve. 

One of the greatest economic lies ever sold is that unions alone fought for workers while greedy business owners worked them into the ground. Work could certainly be brutal during America’s industrial rise. But it was free-market competition, innovation and entrepreneurs such as Henry Ford that helped drive higher pay and better conditions. Unions later claimed much of the credit for gains that competitive markets were already producing, then used that narrative to build enormous political power.

In education, the result has been especially damaging. Teachers unions have spent decades building power over school boards, state legislatures and local policy, all while fighting the accountability and flexibility students actually need. The chart makes the problem hard to ignore, that as union power rises, literacy scores fall. Students deserve a school system built around them, not another protected monopoly built around the adults running it.

Editor’s Note: Do you enjoy Townhall’s conservative reporting that takes on the radical Left and woke media? Support our work so that we can continue to bring you the truth.

Join Townhall VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.