A 2026 analysis from the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) shows a strong negative correlation between the political strength of state teachers’ unions and the adoption of evidence-based early literacy policies.
The New York Post reports at least eight of the ten states where students had the worst literacy scores were liberal bastions with politically powerful teachers’ unions, while just five were Republican and one was a swing state.
The top-performing states were overwhelmingly conservative and had less politically powerful unions — of the 23 top-performing states, 13 were Republican majority and just 4 were Democratic hubs, according to the New York Post.
The fact that literacy rates are inversely correlated with the strength of teachers’ unions tells you everything you need to know about the goals and priorities of teachers’ unions.
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) September 12, 2026
The Wall Street Journal reports that even when considering the top 32 best-scoring states, a mere 7 were Democratic states and only four of them were ranked in the 25th percentile for teachers’ union power.
The assessment was conducted by the PPI’s Director of Education Policy, Rachel Canter, who spent decades in Mississippi advocating for systemic reforms, which transformed the state’s students from having among the lowest literacy rates in the nation to having some of the highest.
In 2013 Mississippi had some of the worst test scores for middle and elementary students in the country, but by 2024 the state had climbed to seventh in literacy and 13th in math, thanks, in part, to Canter’s efforts.
Canter argued for extensive reforms including requiring third graders with the lowest literacy scores to repeat the year while extra training for teachers at the worst-performing elementary schools was also mandated.
Numerous states across the South — primarily Republican strongholds — adopted similar policies, and tended to dominate Canter’s comparison of student literacy scores and teachers’ union power, according to the NY Post.
“We found a strong, negative correlation between the two — the more powerful the unions, the fewer literacy policy principles the state had adopted,” Canter explained.
Canter’s study drew on a June ranking of teachers’ union power by the education nonprofit Thomas B. Fordham Institute, and literacy score data from the ExcelinEd education advocacy group.
