Blue States with Powerful Teachers' Unions Have Far Worse Reading
Progressive policy ambitions meet practical realities as Americans weigh costs and consequences.
You don't need a think tank to tell you that a kid who can’t read by fourth grade is in trouble. But it takes a special kind of report to make the obvious sound like a revelation. The Progressive Policy Institute just confirmed what any parent in a blue state already suspects: the stronger the teachers' union, the worse the literacy rate.
New Republican Times Editorial Board
A new report revealed that blue states with powerful teachers’ unions are underperforming with respect to literacy against Republican states with weaker unions. The findings from the Progressive Policy Institute [...] The post Blue States with Powerful Teachers' Unions Have Far Worse Reading Scores for Students Than Red States with Weak Unions appeared first on The Western Journal .
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New Republican Times Editorial Board
You don't need a think tank to tell you that a kid who can’t read by fourth grade is in trouble. But it takes a special kind of report to make the obvious sound like a revelation. The Progressive Policy Institute just confirmed what any parent in a blue state already suspects: the stronger the teachers' union, the worse the literacy rate. Meanwhile, red states with less stranglehold from union bosses are actually teaching kids the basics. The correlation is so stark it borders on parody.
We’re not talking about a small gap. We’re talking about states that prioritize adult employment contracts over childhood development. The report points to a "district of innovation" in Texas and a charter school in D.C. as bright spots—places where flexibility beats bureaucracy. It’s not magic. It’s the result of saying *no* to endless excuses and *yes* to phonics. When the union’s first question is "what about the teachers?" instead of "what about the kids?", you get a system that graduates functional illiterates. The priority is the paycheck, not the pupil.
The left loves to scream about "funding gaps" until they’re blue in the face. But this report guts that argument. Blue states spend more per pupil and get worse results. Why? Because money gets funneled into administration and legal defense for incompetent staff, not into reading coaches or intervention programs. They’ll blame poverty, they’ll blame the parents, they’ll blame anything except the sacred cow of the Democratic party. Eventually, someone has to tell the truth: a system that refuses to fire bad actors and refuses to adopt proven curriculum is a system that wants to fail.
Here’s the kicker for voters in places like California and New York: you are paying a premium for a substandard product. The report isn't just a gotcha for Republicans; it's a wake-up call for parents stuck in failing districts. Don't hold your breath waiting for the union leadership to fix this. They’ll fight school choice tooth and nail because choice equals competition. In the meantime, the data is the data. Red states are outperforming blue states on the most fundamental skill there is. Maybe results matter more than rhetoric after all..
Commentary written with AI assistance by the New Republican Times Editorial Board.