The Impact of Teacher Union Reforms on Student Performance: Evidence From the Midwestern States

• In Event: Competing Influences: Governance, Unions, and Funding Mechanisms

Abstract

This study examines the causal link between teacher union reforms and students’ educational outcomes. I adopt the rent seeking model as a theoretical framework to verify whether recent teacher union reforms result in improving student performance. I focus on Midwestern states that have experienced radical union reforms since 2010 and classify them into discrete groups based on common features involving the reforms. I employ the difference-in-differences technique on longitudinal district-level data provided by the Stanford Education Data Archive.

Author

• Minseok Yang, West Texas A&M University