Despite arguments about the effect of collective bargaining contracts on student achievement, research on the question remains “limited, ambiguous, and incomplete,” a report says.
The policy brief from the Center for Evaluation & Education Policy at Indiana University’s school of education surveys a dozen major studies on the topic. In general, those studies had contradictory findings and used differing methodologies: Several looked at a snapshot of student-achievement data, while others examined changes in achievement over time.
The brief suggests that future studies on collective bargaining agreements home in on how contracts shape other contextual factors potentially affecting teacher quality, such as class size and salaries. New studies, it says, should directly test specific contract provisions.
