Review of The Teacher Unions by Myron Lieberman

The Teacher Unions is the first critical, well-documented, comprehensive book ever written on the inner workings of the U.S. teachers' unions. That, by itself, makes it indispensable to anyone attempting to understand the effects that the NEA (National Education Association) and the AFT (American Federation of Teachers) have had on public schooling. What makes the book especially compelling, however, is the identity of its author.
Dr. Myron Lieberman is not only a long-time member of both the NEA and the AFT, but also

Read the Introduction

a one-time candidate for the leadership of the AFT. He began his career not as a union buster, but as a high-school teacher and later a union negotiator. Throughout his professional life, Lieberman has been an advocate of teachers' rights, and of teachers' organizations capable of negotiating fair contractual terms for their members. It was only after decades of working within the teachers' union establishment that Lieberman regretfully concluded that the NEA and the AFT had lost sight of these reasonable goals, setting their sights on a much grander political agenda extending well beyond the field of education, and often conflicting with the views of rank-and-file teachers. (Read more about the author in the Preface to the book.)
In their present form, Lieberman argues, the NEA and AFT have a wide range of deleterious affects on American education and American politics. Free from any real competition, they pursue their objectives through legislation and regulation rather than by offering better services at lower costs. "School boards and school administrators," he observes, "are largely unaware of the ways that collective bargaining contracts in public education maximize union revenues and political influence." Given the tremendous power they enjoy thanks to their duopoly over the education labor market, they vigorously oppose all policies that might increase competition or reduce the demand for teacher services, from vouchers, to contracting out, to home schooling. Lieberman summarizes his conclusions in the book's Introduction.