The United States is rare among nations in its highly decentralized process for negotiating collective bargaining agreements with local teachers' unions. To determine whether partisanship can predict these highly localized decisions, I construct an original database of Pennsylvania collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) merged with publicly…

Educational policy research on teacher unionization in the United States has been dominated by two theoretical perspectives: "rent-seeking" and "teacher voice." While bringing valuable insights to bear, these views have mutated into rigid and often ideologically charged alternatives with strong normative claims about teacher…

This study explores how teachers' unions are responding to the growing policy of dual enrollment (DE). I reviewed all available collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) of public schools in Ohio, using qualitative content analysis to look for ways that CBAs are addressing DE policy. Analysis revealed four themes. The first theme suggests that…

In this paper, we draw upon in-depth interviews with teachers and administrators in 18 unionized charter schools around the country to investigate teachers' motivations for unionization. Our results suggest that while mismanagement and distrust are often the proximate cause of charter unionization efforts, both material and purposive…

Despite the growing media attention paid to charter-school unions, comparatively little empirical research exists. Drawing on interview data from two cities (Detroit, MI, and New Orleans, LA), our exploratory study examined charter-school teachers' motivations for organizing, the political and power dimensions, and the framing of unions by both…

Guided by Honig and Hatch's conceptualization of bridging and buffering, we analyzed the first teacher collective bargaining agreements negotiated after the enactment of the Ohio Teacher Evaluation System to understand how state law has shaped provisions for teacher evaluation, compensation, reductions in force (RIF), transfers, and contract…

Most previous literature on teacher knowledge- and skill-based pay has adopted a managerial perspective. This article adopts an alternative, collective bargaining viewing lens, addressing teachers' likely reactions to such plans, collective bargaining issues that may emerge between a teachers' union and a district employer concerning such plans,…

Conventional wisdom has it that teacher unions are singularly concerned with enhancing the compensation packages of those whom they represent. Issues central to educational quality, from better teacher preparation to more rigorous professional evaluation, play second fiddle to the primary union focus on wages and benefits, according to…