Independent Education Associations

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In terms of recent history, we seem to be at an inflection point in anti-teacher union rhetoric. Building on the successes of officials like former Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and the emotionally-driven rhetoric of pandemic school closures, many Red State leaders and rightwing political operatives have gone all in on blaming virtually every problem in America on “teacher’s unions” (even in states where teacher’s union affiliates were, in many ways, crushed long ago).

Former Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, via his official website, where he writes, “It is God’s providence that I am in this position at this time in history. In so many ways, America is under siege. We see it on our campuses, in our culture, and even in our communications with the censorship of Big Tech.”

South Carolina, for example, has had a Republican majority in every branch of government for over two decades, and the 2000 Branch v Myrtle Beach state Supreme Court decision interpreted South Carolina’s “Right to Work” law in such a way that the state’s union affiliate, The South Carolina Education Association, along with other public sector unions and union affiliates in the state, have lost an incredible amount of power and leverage (essentially, the Court found that the one protection for workers in the law— they can’t be prohibited from joining a union— does not apply to public sector employees in the state, because public employers are not included in the law’s description of “any employer”).

This is a large part of why South Carolina’s teacher contract is nearly meaningless.

And yet even in South Carolina, officials have often been unable to resist painting any action by teachers, no matter how grassroots, no matter how clearly aimed at the public good, as somehow connected to a dark conspiracy by Big Teacher Union (a thing which, functionally, does not exist in South Carolina, if it exists anywhere).

Screenshot from the Professional Educators of North Carolina website, which lists many associations in the loose network of “Independent Education Associations”.

It makes sense, then, that in South Carolina educators often ask, what is the difference between a teacher union affiliate like The South Carolina Education Association (The SCEA), and an "independent" teacher association, like Palmetto State Teachers Association (PSTA)?