Who’s Active in School Board Politics? The Participation of Teachers’ Unions and Other Groups

Background: Scholarship on interest groups in local education politics is frequently framed as a competition between teachers’ unions and reformers. However, the landscape of education politics has changed considerably. Teachers’ unions have faced setbacks, including the U.S. Supreme Court Janus v. AFSCME (2018) decision. Many school boards across the country have become contested political arenas amid heightened local and national attention. This has all occurred against the backdrop of rising partisan polarization in education. Purpose: Given these developments, it is essential to understand whether long-standing assumptions about interest group activity remain true today. This study fills an important gap in the literature by describing the contemporary landscape of interest group involvement in school boards and provides a critical bridge to a new era of research on how these actors shape local education politics. Research Design: This paper draws on a national survey of school board members and Ballotpedia’s tracking of endorsements across 10 states in 2023. This study examines how the activity and policy priorities of teachers’ unions compare to other interest groups, which groups support the same candidates as the teachers’ union, and where teachers’ unions play the most active role in school board politics and elections. Conclusion: Interest group activity in school board politics can no longer be understood as a simple contest between teachers’ unions and reform groups. Across data sources, teachers’ unions are not the most active group in most districts. Instead, the local political landscape is better described as pluralistic, marked by involvement from political parties, partisan-leaning organizations, and parent groups. These findings suggest that contemporary school board politics are shaped by a broader and more ideologically diverse set of actors than in previous eras.