SCHOOL BOARD BATTLES ARE RAGING Union leaders clearly know the game. As former Los Angeles teacher union boss Alex Caputo-Pearl once explained, “We have a unique power – we elect our bosses. It would be difficult to think of workers anywhere else who elect their bosses. We do. We must take advantage of it.”
Teachers unions finally have some competition in all-important school board races.
It’s no secret that the teachers unions have control over most aspects of public education in the U.S. The school boards, which negotiate with unions over salary, work rules, etc. are particularly important for the unions to dominate. To that end, Michael Hartney, a fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, recently quantified the unions’ stronghold on the all-important boards.
Hartney asserts that union-endorsed candidates win about 70% of all competitive school board races. Union support helps both incumbents and challengers, and union-friendly candidates also tend to win in both conservative and liberal school districts.