State’s Teacher’s Unions Tout Growth Amidst National Decline 

West Virginia’s teachers’ unions are bucking a national trend in a new national study.  

West Virginia has the 19th strongest teacher’s unions in the country but is one of only five states where membership hasn’t declined.  

That’s according to a study the education policy think tank Fordham Institute released Wednesday that looks at how much influence teacher unions still wield in today’s K–12 education landscape.  

Melissa Lyon is an assistant professor of public policy at the University of Albany and the study’s principal investigator.  

“In West Virginia in 2008, 68% of public school teachers were union members, and then by 2022 that’s up to 73%,” she said. “That may not sound like a huge jump, but the fact that it didn’t go down, and even just the fact of it increasing, is really notable.”  

The study looked at five metrics, including: 

• Resources and Membership 

• Involvement in Politics 

• Labor and Bargaining Policies 

• Policy Wins and Losses 

• Perceived Influence  

In a K–12 landscape that has grown more crowded and contested over the last fifteen years, Lyon said union membership can be an indicator of the strength of union influence on educational policy. 

“I think a lot of people have the impression and have had this impression for at least the past 15 or maybe 20 years, that teachers unions are the major player in state education politics, that they are some people have called them the 800-pound gorilla,” she said. “What we’re seeing is that teachers’ unions are certainly still important actors in state education politics, but they’re not the only actors, and potentially not even the primary actors.” 

While West Virginia’s union resources and membership ranked high in the study, 8^th in the nation, perceived influence was relatively low, ranking 32^nd .