The Relationship between Teacher Unions and Teacher Quality in Large Urban and Suburban School Districts

Abstract

This study utilizes the binomial hierarchical generalized linear modeling (HGLM) technique and nationally representative data (SASS 2003-2004) to examine the relationship between teacher unions and teacher quality in America's large urban and suburban districts and the effect of teacher unions on the intra-district distribution of teacher quality across schools with varying poverty and minority student concentration in the largest districts. Results reveal that compared with non-unionized districts, strongly unionized districts tend to have higher proportions of NCLB defined highly qualified teachers, teachers with at least five years of experience, teachers with subject-area degrees, and teachers with subject-area certifications in the large urban and suburban districts. But, strongly unionized and non-unionized districts have comparable proportions of empirically-defined high quality teachers and teachers who graduated from selective colleges. Weakly unionized districts are less likely to attract and retain experienced teachers than non-unionized ones. This study also finds that in the largest districts school poverty/minority level has a stronger (and negative) effect on the distribution of experienced teachers in strongly unionized districts than in non-unionized districts, which suggests that in strongly unionized districts the teacher quality gap is much wider across high and low poverty/minority schools in terms of employing experienced teachers.