A report just released by the Fordham Institute,, an update to a 2012 analysis, shows that while overall teacher union power has weakened (based on a rubric developed by  three labor union researchers), the New Jersey Education Association is the fourth strongest among all states and the District of Columbia. Currently the states with the strongest teacher unions are (in order) Vermont, California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Hawaii. The states with the weakest teacher unions are Arkansas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Mississippi.  Complete rankings below.

 Primary takeaways below but here are a few thoughts: 

More than half of the period studied — 2012-2026— was during the Murphy Administration, which displayed a cloying prostration to NJEA leaders. NJEA says get rid of the high standards of PARCC exams? Done. Eliminate the link between teacher evaluations and student academic growth? Done. Implement a charter school moratorium? Done. Close schools during covid longer than any other state? Done.*

The submissiveness of the Murphy Administration to NJEA leaders was bad for kids’ academic development, which has dropped down to 20th out of 38 states in growth in math and 19th out of 35 states in reading  In fact, one could draw a correlation between NJEA’s demands for weakening of accountability, insertions of social justice memes everywhere all at once, and reduction of public school choice to NJ students’ failure to make up as much academic ground as states with far weaker teacher unions. (Example: Tennessee’s teacher union strength is ranked 49th, Mississippi is ranked 47th, and Louisiana is ranked 44th, all states where low-income students are outperforming NJ’s low-income students.)

 But now we have a new Sherrill Administration. It  is too early to tell how much power NJEA will yield in the governor’s office but those whose primary focus is student success may be hoping Gov. Sherrill is less obsequious than her predecessor to NJEA’s  leaders. 

NJEA dues per member are by far the highest in the country. According to Fordham, “teacher unions in the top ten states collect an average of $877 per teacher annually, compared with just $356 per teacher everywhere else.” How much does NJEA charge teachers for annual dues? According to the Sunlight Policy Center of NJ, total dues this year for NJEA membership climbed to $1,127 per teacher per year. (When you add in dues to the national union, the county union, and the local bargaining unit, each NJEA member pays $1,585 per year.)

New Jersey Findings:

• New Jersey ranks fourth overall in teacher union strength nationally.
• It is one of seven states ranked among the top ten states overall both in 2012 and today.
• It ranks among the top five states in three of our five “areas” of teacher union strength (resources and membership, involvement in politics, and policy wins and losses).
• After adjusting for cost-of-living differences, NJ unions have the nation’s highest yearly revenues per teacher.
• It has the second-highest percentage of teachers who belong to unions.
• It ranks 16th nationally in terms of perceived influence and 23rd nationally for its labor and bargaining policies.

*From an editorial in the 74 by Greg Fournier: “Five years after the pandemic, the NJEA might hope that New Jersey voters would have forgotten the school closures, or at least forgiven the union for them. But parents may have a longer memory of being locked out of classrooms while nearly every other school in America was back in session….Is the largest teachers union in a deep-blue state like New Jersey losing political clout?”