They are monopolistic organizations that represent workers in a monopolistic industry that can’t go out of business.
Michael Hartney and Vladimir Kogan write for City Journal about a specific case of teachers’ union duplicity in Newton, Mass., where teachers went on strike illegally for eleven school days earlier this year:
The Newton Teachers Association cited many grievances to justify its work stoppage, but at the heart of its campaign was the false claim that Newton had been perennially stingy to its schools. NTA president Mike Zilles, for example, lambasted the city’s mayor for “chronic underfunding.” The data prove otherwise. Newton has steadily boosted school spending despite falling student enrollment. Between the start of the pandemic and 2022, enrollment in the district declined by 8 percent. This included one in thirty Newton school-aged kids leaving the local public system for private schools.
Ironically, this student exodus was partly the union’s own doing, as it fought to keep schools closed far longer than most other districts nationally. Even so, Newton’s inflation-adjusted spending per pupil rose about 8 percent over the last five years and 17 percent over the last decade, an increase attributable to expanding district employment despite smaller enrollment. Between 2012 and 2022, the number of teachers that the district employed grew 15 percent, while student enrollment shrunk by about 4 percent.
Not only has the district increased its per-pupil spending, it has also increased its employment despite a smaller student population — and the union still calls it “underfunding.”
Newton is a wealthier community than most, but it is also true at the national level that per-pupil spending has been increasing. From 2016 to 2021, national per-pupil spending increased by 22 percent. In fact, in 2021, the most recent year for which Census data are available, per-pupil spending saw the largest year-over-year increase since 2008, jumping by 6.3 percent to $14,347.
That average varies greatly by state. States with strong unions spend way more than average. New York spends $26,571 per pupil. Connecticut spends $22,769. New Jersey spends $22,160.
New York teachers also had the highest average salary of any state in 2021. “New York teacher salaries have increased by 73% over the last 20 years — from $51,020 in the 1999-2000 academic year, to $87,738 in the 2020-2021 school year,” reported the Staten Island Advance.
But still, think about what a per-pupil expenditure of $26,571 means. In a class of 25 students, that’s $664,275. Give $87,738 to the teacher. Where is the other $576,537 going? Can a classroom with the highest-paid teachers in the country and over half a million dollars in funding going to things other than the teacher really be said to be underfunded?
Well, go to the homepage of New York State United Teachers right now, and you’ll see “FUND OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS / FUND OUR FUTURE.” The 2024–25 New York state budget “proposes $419 million dollars in underfunding,” according to the union.
There is simply no amount of money that will ever satisfy teachers’ unions. They are monopolistic organizations that represent workers in a monopolistic industry that can’t go out of business. They can ask for whatever they want, and they always want more. The only real constraint is whether the politicians who control the purse strings will accede to their demands, which is why they spend millions of dollars and mobilize thousands of volunteers every election cycle to get sympathetic politicians elected.