The diminishing power of teacher unions

In 2012, we released a landmark study, How Strong Are U.S. Teacher Unions? A State-By-State Comparison, that was the first to measure teacher union strength comprehensively across multiple dimensions and all 50 states. Since then, numerous scholars have used our measure in their research on unions’ effects.

Yet, even as our understanding of unions improved, the landscape of education politics has evolved in directions that complicate old assumptions about union power. For example, in 2015 the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) reduced the federal role in accountability, thus returning substantial authority over education to the state level, where teacher unions have often exercised greater influence than in Washington. Yet, by the end of the decade, the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Janus v. AFSCME—building on earlier state-level fights such as Wisconsin Act 10—had delivered a blow to unions’ revenues and membership by ending their ability to collect mandatory fees from teachers who were not union members.

Shortly thereafter, the Covid-era pivot to remote learning thrust teacher unions into the national spotlight again, mostly in ways that seemed to undermine their standing, as evidence of learning loss mounted and criticism of lengthy closures intensified. Meanwhile, the school choice movement continued to gain momentum and erode the market share of traditional public schools—unions’ traditional strongholds—while the backlash against “CRT” and other perceived excesses of culturally progressive educators fueled the rise of conservative parent groups, such as Moms for Liberty, that were rarely aligned with their local unions.

Throughout this entire period, the education reform advocacy ecosystem also grew larger and more robust. As one indicator, the number of national, state, and local organizations that joined the Policy Innovators in Education Network grew from approximately 30 groups in 2012 to more than 180 groups today. State-level reform groups are now active in almost every state. Thus, when state lawmakers debate education policy legislation, unions are no longer necessarily the most informed or powerful organizations to show up, testify, and lobby for their desired outcomes.

Impressionistically, these events have produced an education politics landscape that is more crowded, more contested, and less predictable than it was a decade ago. But as always, we were eager to get beyond impressions. Turns out, so were labor union researchers Melissa Arnold Lyon (University of Albany), Sandy Frost Waldron (independent researcher), and Rebecca Jacobsen (Michigan State University) who agreed to update our 2012 report.

The result is A Crowded Table: Teacher Union Strength in 2026. Building on our original study, the authors set out to gauge teacher union strength in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia (D.C.). Collectively, the 59 measures—which include 29 new measures that were not in the original report—seek to quantify union strength in five key areas: Resources and Membership; Involvement in Politics; Labor and Bargaining Policies; Policy Wins and Losses; and Perceived Influence, which draws from an original survey examining how stakeholders in each of the 50 states and D.C. perceive teacher union strength today.

The states with the strongest teacher unions are Vermont, California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Hawaii. The states with the weakest teacher unions are Arkansas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Mississippi. (See our interactive table on the report website for the overall rankings alongside the rankings for each of the five areas.)

The full report explains how these rankings were calculated. Additional details about each area and indicator are also provided, along with more factoids and state-specific observations than we have time for here.

Below, however, are our three topline takeaways.

1. Teacher unions appear to be weakening.

Though it may sound fanciful to education reformers in Chicago, where the teacher union is as militant and powerful as ever, the data overall suggest that teacher unions are weaker than they were a decade ago. For example, the percentage of K–12 teachers who were union members fell in 45 states plus D.C., with especially large drops in North Carolina and Wisconsin, where they have been the target of much-debated legislation. Similarly, teacher unions’ share of contributions to state political parties declined in 34 states, in part because of reduced union investment and in part because of increased spending by other actors.

With less membership and revenue, of course, come weakened political influence and diminished perceptions of credibility. And in fact, our survey of education stakeholders suggests that most no longer view their state’s teacher union as an uncontested force in K–12 education.

2. Blue states still have the strongest unions.

Of the ten states with the strongest teacher unions, eight had Democratic trifectas in 2024—Democratic leadership in the governor’s office and both legislative chambers. Moreover, 13 of the 15 states with the strongest unions went blue in the 2024 presidential election (Alaska and Pennsylvania were the exceptions). At the other end of the spectrum, not a single blue state landed among the bottom 20 states for union strength (not counting Washington, D.C., which was number 35). So, while much has happened since we published our original study on this topic, the longstanding relationship between unions and the Democratic party has endured (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Teacher unions are strongest in “blue” states.

3. Some states have experienced notable changes in rank since 2012.

Between 2012 and 2025, ten states—Alabama, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Virginia, and Wisconsin—experienced at least a ten-rank increase or decrease in overall rank. (Maryland, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Virginia, and Vermont went up, indicating their unions became relatively stronger, and Alabama, Indiana, Montana, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin went down, indicating waning power.) Another 17 states experienced at least a five-rank change. (Because of the number of methodological updates since our last report, these changes should be interpreted cautiously.) Still, seven states stayed in the top ten, and another seven stayed in the bottom ten. So, not everything has changed.