Matt Yglesias has a judicious take on teachers unions.

Responding to a post by Doug Henwood asking why it is that liberals seem to hate organized teachers, Yglesias denies anything of the sort.

what baffles me about these discussions is the tendency of labor’s alleged friends to simply refuse to look this reality in the face and instead insist that any hostility to specific union asks must secretly reflect the skeptic’s hostility to the existence of the union or its members. If you think that Chicago’s teachers deserve the right to form an association to advocate, lobby, and bargain on behalf of the interests of its members (and why shouldn’t they?) then you have to think that they deserve the right to advocate for ideas that may not be in the public interest. That’s fine, everybody does it. But it really does mean that the policy proposals ought to be examined on the merits.