Teachers unions are among the most powerful, yet least studied, actors in public education today. Although public attention focuses on the influence of national unions, the policies that most affect teachers and schooling are bargained by local unions and school boards. Interviews with 30 recently elected local union presidents reveal that these…

This article reports that special interest groups opposed to charter schools and high-stakes testing have hijacked Massachusetts's once-independent board of education and stand poised to water down the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) tests and the accountability system they support. President Barack Obama and Massachusetts…

As faculty and other public sector unions become more sophisticated in collective bargaining, they tend to lay a greater variety of demands on the table. This, in turn, forces the employer to ask, Do I really have to bargain about these subjects? As more employers refuse to bargain, more unions charge them with failing to bargain in good faith,…