Pressure mounts on teachers’ unions for education reform as literacy drops 

New global literacy data shows American students falling behind their competition in other countries to the lowest point in 25 years.

But as Heartlander News reported originally in June, the poor test scores aren’t uniform across the U.S., with notable bright spots in areas not dominated by teachers’ union demands for more spending and smaller classrooms.

The latest Program for International Student Assessment scores (PISA) show 15-year-old American students fell 14 points in literacy since 2022 – or approximately 70% of a grade level – even as U.S. math scores hit their lowest level since 2000, multiple media outlets reported.

“The states making progress have given us a road map,” wrote Kevin Huffman, former Tennessee state commissioner of education, about how to fix the problem. “Now others should follow it.”

Huffman noted weak union states such as Mississippi, Louisiana and Tennessee have made remarkable strides in literacy in the post-COVID-19 pandemic period using standards-based teaching, school choice and accountability for early grades.

“None of the ideas implemented are partisan,” Huffman added. “They are the foundation of every successful education reform effort.”

The New York Times, the Washington Post and other liberal icons are also pushing pro-reform messages, especially in literacy.

Mississippi Miracle, model 

Mississippi offers a striking example.

“Did you know that a black fourth grader in Mississippi is two and a half times as likely to be proficient in math and reading as one in California?” comedian Bill Maher told his audience in May. “Mississippi is kicking our a– in education and for way less money. We’re 37th in fourth-grade reading. They’re ninth.”

Fourth-grade reading performance rose from the bottom nationally to the top 10 following a decade of education reforms, even though the state remains 44th in per-pupil spending.

Mississippi has relatively weak teachers’ unions, according to a May report released by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

The bad news for teachers’ unions is that states with strong unions struggle in student testing, according to union data compiled by Heartlander News from the Fordham report:

Central to the discussion is whether reform-minded educators can implement policies that have shown success in the face of union opposition.

One progressive says it can happen, but that’s in part because what’s been done in the past clearly isn’t working.

“If helping kids to read and do math at grade level is the goal, the evidence shows that what we’ve been doing in schools across the country for the last 12 or so years hasn’t worked,” said Rachel Canter, director of education policy at the Progressive Policy Institute.

Canter noted students have lost so much ground that they not only know less than their counterparts did a decade ago, but older children know as little as they have this century.

A graphic created by the Wall Street Journal this month shows the relationship between weak reform and strong unions that Heartlander News noted in June.

The most significant literacy reforms are made in red states where union strength is weakest, while blue states with strong unions are struggling to catch up.

‘Failure a fundraising opportunity’

Unions believe failure justifies asking taxpayers for more money, Corey DeAngelis, research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, told Heartlander News.

“Teachers’ unions treat failure as a fundraising opportunity,” DeAngelis said. “Anything is justification for more money when it comes to the greedy teachers’ unions. Their refusal to reopen schools during COVID was immediately recast as a reason they needed even more cash. They constantly fail to improve student outcomes, and their excuse is always the same: they just need more taxpayer money.”

Part of the problem is that the expectation of more money as a solution is baked into education academia and research, even when the economics don’t line up.

A 2024 Harvard study argued federal pandemic relief spending significantly narrowed the achievement gap.

But a closer look at the study shows the gains were not statistically significant in any scientific sense.

“One of the research teams, which includes Harvard University economist Tom Kane and Stanford University sociologist Sean Reardon,” wrote one pro-union group in favor of the federal grants, “likened the gains to six days of learning in math and three days of learning in reading for every $1,000 in federal pandemic aid per student.”

At this rate, it would cost nearly $60,000 per pupil to gain one extra grade level, or $42,000 to make up for the PISA testing deficit.

But as experience shows, no matter how much the unions demand it, schools can’t buy back student performance.

Only standards can.

“We’ve increased real per-student spending by about 170% since 1970,” added DeAngelis, “but outcomes certainly haven’t improved by 170%. They’ve gotten worse.”