For decades, we have been hearing about the crisis in American public education. Sparked partly by a scholarly interest in the underlying foundations of public policy affecting education and partly by a concern for the future of our children's schools, political scientists have contributed to our understanding of education policy and politics. One of the latest efforts to explain the politics of public education is Terry Moe's Special Interest. Coming on the heels of Davis Guggenheim's documentary Waiting for Superman (2010), Moe's book delivers a scathing attack on the negative impact of teachers' unions on our children's achievement in public schools. Together these two works raise important questions about the current state of public education and what might be done to improve it.

This book is at its best when Moe brings mountains of evidence and research to bear on his argument about both the power of teachers' unions and the detrimental effects of collective bargaining in public education. Having recently completed a four-year term as an elected member of my local school board, I can attest that my own experience confirms many of Moe's well-researched conclusions, especially those regarding the collective bargaining contracts of public school teachers. My school board colleagues and I often complained about contractual provisions that worked against what was best for the children in our district. I was often frustrated by a school system where the rules governing teacher selection, workplace performance, and promotion resembled those of an assembly-line factory worker rather than an educational professional, a point the author makes quite eloquently. His detailed examination of what results from teachers' collective bargaining contracts helps us understand one of the challenges facing any educational reform advocate.

The strength of the book and its argument—Moe's singular focus—is also its major weakness, however. For all of the research and evidence the author brings to bear on his subject, his premise and conclusions are overly simplistic. Even on the question of collective bargaining, Moe fails to see the complexity of the situation. At one point, he asks us to ponder what educational policy might look like “if it were possible to go back to square one and design schools from scratch, aiming to build organizations that are maximally effective at getting students to learn” (p. 214). This is like designing social security or health-care reform “from scratch,” a nice theoretical exercise but one not likely to yield results in the real political world. Returning to my own experience as a school board member, the two times I was involved in negotiations over the teachers' union contract, every effort to achieve changes that we thought would improve education or be good for kids had to be negotiated, with the interests of all parties considered (including taxpayers, who, we felt, were not willing to pay for revisions that might bring a more professional and child-friendly culture to our schools). Even Moe concedes that the positive reforms brought by mayoral control in districts like New York City and Washington, DC, were paid for by salary and other concessions in the collective bargaining process.

There is another major problem with Moe's singular focus. A number of critical variables affect children's learning and, while teachers' unions may create rules that have a negative impact or block policies that might improve public education, it is not enough simply to blow up the collective bargaining agreement or erect a detour around it by creating more charter schools or providing public vouchers for children to attend private schools. (Moe himself acknowledges these multiple factors when attempting to address potential critics of his argument, who counter that the districts that have less collective bargaining also have lower measures of academic achievement.) If we are going to be serious about educational reform, we need to consider these various issues, in all of their complexity.

I would begin with questions about the very goals of public education. Moe seems to assume that “academic achievement,” narrowly understood, governed by externally developed standards, and measured by test scores, is the ultimate goal of education. But if, for example, the impact of public education on the economy is Moe's primary concern, one could make the counterargument that the very teachers' unions he rails against have produced conditions making it possible for schoolteachers to thrive in our economy. And given that women and minorities are better represented in public education (and by public employee unions) compared with other professions, this is a good thing. But beyond this, what about other important goals, such as student “growth,” as defined by educational theorists like John Dewey?Footnote ¹ Or the creation of better citizens in our democracy? If we consider these goals, other factors might be more important, such as the quality of pedagogy and student–teacher interaction in the classroom, or the achievement of real citizen and student voice in school governance.

Special Interest is also simplistic in focusing solely on teachers as actors in the field of public education. Teachers are important actors, no doubt, and attention to their “special interests,” when those affect the quality of education, is justified. But a good political scientist should be looking at all of the actors impacting a child's education, and here Moe's study is woefully inadequate. Beyond teachers, innovative and creative educational administrators seem critical for changing public education, something clearly implied by the author's focus on the “small victories for sanity” that have occurred in districts where superintendents have come in and shaken things up. But the turnover rate among educational administrators has been something that many educational reformers have studied as an obstacle to true reform, as well as to teacher effectiveness and morale. Urban school superintendents serve an average of fewer than four years in office, even though their salaries have experienced a real increase of 19% over the past decade.Footnote ² This “burn and churn” is also true of public school principals, especially at the secondary level.

Parents are important actors in public education as well. They help prepare children for their entry into the public schools and provide the foundation and supplements for a child's learning and growth. They also have a role in school governance, where their voices can provide important input into the development of school policies and, to use Moe's language, “counterbalance” the power of teachers' unions in determining educational outcomes.

And what about schoolchildren and their characteristics? We have seen ample evidence about the impact of poverty or inadequate preschool preparation on academic performance. Similarly, we must consider the role that segregation (and resegregation)—something Moe claims as a factor that explains why southern school districts show lower academic achievement rates, even without powerful teachers' unions and with negative collective bargaining arrangements—plays in schoolchildren's success.

Simply diminishing the power of teachers' unions in public schools without addressing these variables will not do the trick. For example, providing more charter schools—a policy alternative Moe seems to favor, and one that has a record of as many failures as successes—fails to account for the vast majority of children, who remain in the public schools (which rarely benefit from the presence even of innovative charter schools in their districts, one of the primary arguments for public funding of charters). Similarly, recruiting an army of Teach for America workers—another “exciting development” according to Moe (p. 313)—will not provide long-term success for individual students or lasting change for school systems, since only a minority of TFA graduates continue on as public school teachers after their two-year term is over.

In the end, Special Interest is yet another example of what James Fallows has called the “op-ed book,” defined as “books that exist principally as vehicles for introducing a specific point into current political discussion, rather than as works designed actually to be read.”Footnote ³ Moe's narrative is tedious and redundant and, though he brings plenty of evidence to bear on his argument, it is an argument that could have been made in the 1,500 words I have been allotted, rather than the 500 pages that this volume covers. Furthermore, the argument is simplistic, as it fails to take account of the myriad forces and variables affecting public schooling and its improvement. Still, Moe makes an important argument, one that any educational policymaker needs to consider in determining the best course for America's public schools. After all, a strong and scholarly op-ed by a prominent political scientist should be taken seriously by scholars and decision makers alike.