You often hear it (rhetorically) asked: If teachers’ unions are such a negative force in education, then why don’t the right-to-work states perform better academically? Alabama has the answer: Being right-to-work doesn’t mean that teachers and their unions are politically impotent. To wit, the ‘Bama Education Association basically eviscerated that state’s formerly-aggressive Race to the Top application. Off the table: proposals for quarterly standardized tests to track progress to state standards, new salary schedules for teachers that align with performance, and extra incentives for math, science, and special education teachers. Compare that to Minnesota, which submitted a proposal with elements like these intact, even though it’s supposedly a “strong union” state. Which just goes to show that the “right to work” label is about as meaningful as Tiger Woods’ apologies for his “transgressions.”
“State cuts teacher merit pay from federal fund application after AEA leader objects,” by Rena Havner Philips, Alabama Press-Register, January 24, 2010