The Problem of Collective Action: An Illustration in Education

As stated by Mancur Olson in his first book of 1971 The Logic of Collective Action, small social groups are easier to organize than large ones. All other things being equal, a minority party will be more successful in lobbying governments, even if the total gains for its members are less than the total losses of all members of the majority party. Another example can be found in primary and secondary education, where teacher unions impose working conditions that benefit their members but reduce the value of the product for students and their parents. (See “Schools in Rich Countries Are Making Poor Progress,” The EconomistJuly 7, 2024.)

Two parties in the exchange benefit from it (as judged by each party himself), otherwise one will reject it. But this basic economic principle only applies to free trade; it does not work if one group imposes its conditions by force, or if one side consists of members who join voluntarily.

Since 2000, the OECD’s Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) has been testing 15-year-old students in mathematics, reading and science. The average score did not show improvement until the early or mid-2010s, and then declined until 2022 (latest year available). Other indicators strongly confirm this trend, which precedes the Covid-19 pandemic. The magazine notes:

Almost a quarter of 15-year-olds in OECD member countries do not meet basic skills in mathematics, reading and science, according to the standards set by PISA. That means 16m young people struggle with tasks that involve math or find it more difficult than it should be to find meaning in basic texts.

One of the reasons why most consumers (parents of students) cannot change the situation follows from Olson’s concept of collective action:

Students and their families are rarely organized; this makes it easier for teachers’ unions to resist changes in, say, teacher training and evaluation.

About 70 percent of the school’s teachers are union members, an unusually high number even though it includes less controlled labor unions. Parents with children in small schools can arrange them locally at low cost (with a decentralized system like the one in the US). However, they often face teacher unions at the state or national level. Trade unions benefit from special legal rights and powers, such as the employer’s obligation to negotiate, the disruption of strikes or the threat thereof, or the obligation of workers to join a union or pay union dues. Depending on state law, teacher unions can exercise some of these powers, simplifying their collective actions and translating them into collective “agreements”.

I do not disagree that this problem is the only one that plagues public schools. Other imperfections in the political process including the short tenure of politicians prevent elected officials from addressing the weaknesses of the public education system, as The Economist notes:

Meanwhile, leaders are being asked to spend political money on reforms that may not bear fruit for years.

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