| Teacher unions are a relatively recent phenomenon in the United States, tracing their collective bargaining origins back only to the early 1960s. However, the two largest unions, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, now claim millions of members and wield considerable political influence. It is puzzling why so few scholars have scrutinized whether teacher unions shape different aspects of school environments, and ultimately the academic performance of students. I used data from the National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS) and the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) to examine whether a union presence affected P--12 teachers, principals, and the larger school environment. I employed multivariate regression techniques whenever possible to isolate the effects of teacher unionism from those of confounding variables. My findings suggest that unionized and nonunionized schools differ on important dimensions of social organization. In particular, unionized teachers reported more autonomy in the classroom, greater influence over school policy, and more job satisfaction than nonunionized counterparts. In contrast, unionized teachers reported less teacher collaboration, and judged their principals to be less effective leaders. Notably, unionism did not appear to raise the level of conflict between principals and teachers. In sum, teacher unionism was linked to increased teacher empowerment and job satisfaction, decreased hierarchical monitoring of teachers, and decreased vertical and horizontal communication in schools. In the second part of my dissertation, I found that teacher unionism was not related to lower student achievement (math, reading, science, or history) between the eighth and tenth grades. Further, the social organizational differences between unionized and nonunionized schools did little to mediate the effects of unionism on student achievement. This study has implications for organizational theory and behavior, as well as our understanding of school systems and educational reform. |
