The Problem of Collective Action: An Illustration in Education

As formalized by Mancur Olson in his seminal 1971 book The Logic of Collective Action, smaller social groups are easier to organize than larger ones. Consequently and other things equal, a small group will be more effective at lobbying governments, even if the total benefits of its members are smaller than what all the members of the large group lose. One illustration can be found in primary and secondary education, where teachers’ unions impose working conditions that are in their members’ interests but reduce the value of the product the pupils and their parents get. (See “School in Rich Countries Are Making Poor Progress,” The Economist, July 7, 2024.)

Two parties to an exchange benefit from it (as judged by each party for himself), otherwise one would decline. But this basic economic principle only applies to a free exchange; it does not apply if one party coercively imposes its conditions, or if one side includes involuntary members.

Since 2000, the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) evaluates 15-year-old students in maths, reading, and science. The average scores showed no improvement until the early or mid 2010s, and then declined until 2022 (latest year available). Other indicators largely confirm the trend, which precedes the Covid-19 epidemic. The magazine notes:

Around a quarter of 15-year-olds in OECD-member countries do not meet basic proficiency in maths, reading and science, according to standards set by PISA. That means 16m teenagers struggle with tasks involving numeracy or find it more difficult than they should to draw meaning from basic texts.

One reason why the more numerous consumers (the parents of the pupils) cannot change the situation follows from Olson’s theory of collective action:

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

Some 70% of schoolteachers belong to a union, an unusually high proportion although it also includes less controlling employees’ associations. Parents whose children attend small schools may be able to organize themselves locally at low cost (in a decentralized system like that of the US). Yet, they often face state-level or national-level teachers’ unions. Trade unions benefit from special legal privileges and powers, such as the employer’s obligation to negotiate, strike disruptions or threats thereof, or the obligation of workers to be union members or to pay union dues. Depending on state law, teachers’s unions can exercise some of these powers, which facilitate their collective actions and translate into restrictive collective “agreements.”

I am not arguing that this problem is the only one plaguing public schools. Other imperfections of political processes including politicians’ short-termism prevent elected officials from correcting the weaknesses of the public education system, as The Economist recognizes:

Meanwhile leaders are asked to spend political capital on changes that might not bear fruit for years.

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