The power of teachers’ unions in school board politics may be on the decline, as parents, advocacy groups, and even political parties exert more influence in the highly local races, according to a new academic article.
“Some traditionally held beliefs about the nature of the politics of education, including the tradition of nonpartisanship and the power of teachers’ unions in off-cycle elections, may be eroding,” says the article by Ariell R. Bertrand, an assistant professor at Texas Tech University’s college of education.
“Who’s Active in School Board Politics? The Participation of Teachers’ Unions and Other Groups,” was published this month online in the Teachers College Record, the journal of Teachers College, Columbia University.
Previous research has shown that a teachers’ union endorsement is uniquely powerful in school board races, but Bertrand’s research points to the growing number of actors in school board politics that have become increasingly heated since the COVID-19 pandemic.
The study is based on a nationwide survey in late 2024 and early 2025 of about 1,000 local school board members representing nearly 700 districts, as well as a review of school board candidate endorsements by unions and other groups as tracked by the political website Ballotpedia across 10 states in 2023.
The survey shows that parents and organizations such as the PTA or PTO are the most frequently cited active interest groups in board members’ perception of influence, at about double the rate of teachers’ unions.
“When we typically think about interest groups and school board politics, we tend to think about teachers’ unions first and then also education reform organizations, but really the findings of my study suggests that we’re missing a much broader set of actors,” Bertrand said in an interview.
Those actors include the parent groups, political parties, and partisan organizations such as the conservative Moms for Liberty or the left-leaning Red, Wine & Blue, said Bertrand. Her research focuses on the politics of education, including some of the hot-button culture war issues, such as transgender rights and diversity, equity, and inclusion policies that have come to dominate school board policy and elections in some places.
“We know that teachers’ unions are quite successful when they are involved in school board elections across the country,” she said. “If you’re a candidate endorsed by a teachers’ union, you tend to win about 70% of the time. … But they’re not as active as the conventional wisdom would lead you to think.”
Both the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association declined to comment on the study.
A slow shift to partisan board elections?
In some places, contemporary school board politics have become more “partisan and nationalized,” the study says. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, broke “long-standing norms” by endorsing candidates in local school board elections in his state in 2022 and 2024, it says.
While school board elections have traditionally been nonpartisan, five states now provide for party labels, and five other states permit such affiliations to appear on ballots, according to Ballotpedia.
Bertrand said she was troubled by the prospect of a more partisan, and toxic landscape in the local education arena.
“We are starting to have notes of what we see at the national level, which is ‘us versus them’ rhetoric and other consequences of political polarization,” Bertrand said.
“I’m really worried about what that means for governance and the education of students across the country, if school board elections are subject to the pendulum swing that is partisan control.”
Vladimir Kogan, a political science professor at Ohio State University who has also studied education politics, praised Bertrand’s study as a valuable contribution.
“One of our problems in education is always that the conversation is dominated by a few very large and unrepresentative school districts,” he said, noting that large districts such as Chicago or Los Angeles have especially powerful teacher’s unions and other well-funded interests.
“In most other places, things are a little different,” he said, noting that the paper illuminates how there are other influential groups, such as parents and advocacy groups.
Kogan cautioned that he thought the paper was providing a snapshot and not a long-range analysis of influence by different groups. And he noted that PTAs and PTOs “have always had a ’T’ in their names, for teachers,” but those groups are now at least perceived as primarily representing parents.
He also notes that unions have traditionally influenced national, state, and local elections in other ways, such as through their traditionally strong connections with the Democratic party.
“It would be premature to conclude that unions have less impact than we expected, or even to have a sense of which groups are actually having a bigger influence, on the outcome of school board elections,” Kogan said.
