With all due respect towards my former CUNY peeps, there is something wrong on the Internet and I won't be able to function unless I add my two cents.

Scott Lemieux passes along some info from my old stats professor, Ken Sherrill. Sherrill points out that the worst performing states in education don't have collective bargaining rights. Sherrill doesn't really say that collective bargaining rights leads to better schools, but it's implied. Lemieux says that this information shows that crushing the unions won't make the schools better.  

There is no evidence that strong unions lead to better school performance. Strong unions are all in Northern states, which have a higher SES, stronger state government, and a whole slew of other significant factors for schools. Urban areas, which have perhaps the strongest unions, have the worst school performance. 

I'm not arguing against collective bargaining rights. We just need to come up with a better reason to support it.