Corrected: A previous version misstated the official name of Educators for Excellence.
Teachers who do not belong to their unions see value in the organizations but still say they would opt out of paying mandatory fees if given the choice, finds a new survey.
Eighty-five percent of all teachers said that unions are essential or important—among union members, that number jumped to 94 percent, and 74 percent of nonunion members said the same. A similar majority of all teachers said that without collective bargaining, the working conditions and salaries of teachers would be much worse—and 78 percent of nonunion members agreed with that statement.
Still, nearly 60 percent of nonunion members who live in states that require teachers to pay “agency fees” even if they don’t belong to the union said they would opt out of paying those fees if they could.
The survey was based on a nationally representative sample of 1,000 teachers by Educators for Excellence, an advocacy group for teachers that has often clashed with teachers’ unions.
