Right to Work Means Better Education for Kids

The Washington Examiner  reports on how Virginia’s Right to Work law allows states to implement reforms that offer better educational opportunities for children:

An inability to remove bad teachers from the classroom has stymied education reform in Maryland and the District of Columbia, according to a report released Monday by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and two prominent think tanks.

About 77 percent of D.C. Public Schools principals and 72 percent of Maryland’s principals said “teacher unions or associations are a barrier to the removal of ineffective teachers,” compared with a national average of about 61 percent of principals.

In Virginia, a right-to-work state, less than one-third of principals cited the same troubles. That data was collected as part of a U.S. Education Department survey in 2007-08, and compiled with dozens of other measures for a “Leaders and Laggards” state report card on innovation in education. The left-leaning Center for American Progress and the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute helped to write the report.

While Virginia and federal law protect every individual’s right to join a union, the Commonwealth of Virginia prohibits the recognition of union officials as bargaining agents for government employees. The bill was signed into law by then Governor Doug Wilder in 1993.