It appears Kentucky may pass a charter school law.

News recently broke that Noble charter schools may become unionized.

Where is this all heading?

The Forces at Work: Charter Market Share will Continue to Rise 

Charter market share will continue to rise because (a) 40+ states allow charters and this number is increasing and (b) once a charter school is open it is difficult to close.

Yes, policies like charter school caps and moratoriums may slow charter growth down, but it will be incredibly difficult for union leaders to fully stop charters from growing in a world where charters are legal in 90% of states. Rolling back laws in this many states is unlikely.

Charter market share will continue to grow.

The Forces at Work: Unions Organize Where the Teachers Are 

A simple consequence of rising charter market share is a rise in the number of teachers who work at charter schools.

Unions received dues (and power) from having as many teachers as possible enrolled as members.

The more charter schools there are, the more it will be be worthwhile for unions to attempt to organize these teachers, for both financial and political purposes.

The Future of Union Incentives 

So we’re basically going to be in multi-round unionization game between unions and charter schools.

Most importantly, this new game (unionizing a lot of charters) will have very different incentives than the old game (unionizing a local monopoly).

Under the old game, the unions paid a relatively small price for being obstructionist: with only one school operator in town (the district), they didn’t have to worry too much about how their actions affected the performance or reputation of that school operator.

In the new game, the union has a new incentive structure: if they are overly obstructionist, they will reduce their ability  to unionize more charters in the future; however, if they are not obstructionist enough, unionizing a charter won’t slow down the growth of that operator (which is in the unions interest, as they want the district to last as long as possible, as it’s the easiest entity to unionize).

The unions thus want to add value to unionized teachers and at the same time hobble charter school growth.

The ideal play for unions is to: (a) unionize charter schools  (b) demonstrate value to their unionized charter teachers so they can unionize future schools (c) slow down the enrollment growth of unionized charter schools  (d) avoid having unionized charter schools go down in flames so they can unionize future schools.

My Guess

The conditions for charter school unionization are favorable compared to other sectors of the economy: you have a long history of unionization, strong and well-financed existing unions, an inability to outsource to other states or countries, and weak accountability for performance (compared to the financial market).

All of this bodes well for unionization.

But unionizing charters will require unions to moderate their behavior and become less antagonist with management, as they will be working in a market of providers rather than a district monopoly. This will require significant change in their leadership and culture. This is hard to do.

So where are we heading?

One interesting comparison group is nurses, which generally operate in a non-profit, physically anchored, and heavily regulated environment.

Overall, about 20% of nurses belong to a union.

And while most industries have seen declining union membership, nursing union membership has risen over the past 15 years.

I think we will see the same thing happen in the charter sector.

That being said, given that unions have to independently organize each charter organization (which is very expensive), and that their success will be predicated on cultural change, I don’t think we’ll quickly move into a world of 100% charter unionization.

But will we see 20% of charter school teachers (compared to ~7% right now) organized in unions over the next decade or so?

I think so.