How Strong Are U.S. Teacher Unions? A State-By-State Comparison

Amber M. Winkler, Janie Scull, Dara Zeehandelaar

The study analyzed factors ranging from union membership and revenue to state bargaining laws to campaign contributions, and included such measures such as the alignment between specific state policies and traditional union interests and a unique stakeholder survey. The report sorts the fifty-one jurisdictions into five tiers, ranking their teacher unions from strongest to weakest and providing in-depth profiles of each.

Wisconsin's teacher unions ranked 18th out of 50 and are considered strong [PDF report]:

Wisconsin's teacher unions have been
active donors over the past decade. Not only did their contributions amount to 1.0
percent of donations to candidates for state office (16th), but those donations equaled a whopping 22.7 percent of all donations to candidates from the ten highest-giving sectors in the state (2nd), indicating that the unions were real heavyweights
in Wisconsin politics. They also gave 1.9 percent of the donations received by
state political parties (16th). Finally, 17.2 percent of all Wisconsin delegates to the Democratic and Republican national conventions identified as teacher union members (15th).

Posted by Jim Zellmer at November 3, 2012 1:32 AM
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