Rick Hanushek interviews Terry Moe about his new book, Special Interest, which is the definitive, new work on teacher unions and education.
Jay P. Greene's Blog
With Help From Some Friends
Rick Hanushek interviews Terry Moe about his new book, Special Interest, which is the definitive, new work on teacher unions and education.
Jay P. Greene's Blog 
It will be interesting to see the reception that Terry’s book receives. Given his track record, the factual record he presents will be unassailable. Of course, his analysis of that record will be subject to debate.
One policy response to the problems he analyzes and documents is playing out in Wisconsin, where the Governor and Legislature have fundamentally changed the rules of the game. Unions realize the enormous stakes and will go all out to recall the Governor in 2012 and to recall certain legislators. It will be an interesting test. I believe the odds favor the Governor, but by no means is the outcome certain.
Given the clip was about six and a half minutes long it’s forgivable that Mr. Moe couldn’t get into the antecedents of the current education union scene. What’s less forgivable is his missing the nationwide evidence of the diminution of the political power of the teacher’s unions – charters and to a lesser extent, vouchers.
Both undermine the power of the unions and both have been steadily opposed by unions. Pretty successfully in the case of vouchers and rather less so in the case of charter schools. And much less successfully lately.
Technology may deliver the coup de grace but by the time it does the S.S. NEA will have been listing and trailing oil for some time.