Why are America''s public schools falling so short of the mark in educating the nation''s children? Why are they organized in ineffective ways that fly in the face of common sense, to the point that it is virtually impossible to get even the worst teachers out of the classroom? And why, after more than a quarter century of costly education reform, have the schools proven so resistant to change and so difficult to improve?
In this path-breaking book, Terry M. Moe demonstrates that the answers to these questions have a great deal to do with teachers unionswhich are by far the most powerful forces in American education and use their power to promote their own special interests at the expense of what is best for kids.
Despite their importance, the teachers unions have barely been studied. Special Interest fills that gap with an extraordinary analysis that is at once brilliant and kaleidoscopicshedding new light on their historical rise to power, the organizationa
