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Teachers' unions get most of the blame when restrictive labor contracts prevent school districts from changing teachers' working conditions. But Katharine Strunk, assistant professor of education at the University of California, Davis, argues for a "more holistic" analysis of the effects of teacher contracts on a district's allocation of resources and subsequent student outcomes.

Restrictive contracts may result from strong teachers' unions, but districts may also champion contracts that contain restrictions in order to recruit teachers, Strunk noted.

Strunk discussed the issue Tuesday morning at the annual meeting of the American Association of Educational Research in New York City.

"No one else is looking at contracts in this way," Strunk said. "Some districts' teacher contracts are nearly 400 pages long, with virtually every detail in a teacher's work life spelled out. No one provision could be to blame for poor student performance."

In her research, Strunk has found that more restrictive contracts are associated with higher salaries for teachers. Districts with more restrictive contracts also spend less on items that have a direct impact on students, from books and supplies to guidance counselors. She calculates that in a typical, medium-sized district, a more restrictive teachers' union contract translates to a decrease in available funds for non teacher salary expenditures equivalent to the cost of about 130 classroom computers.

"Unfortunately, school funding in California is a zero-sum game," Strunk said. "When you spend more in one area, you have to spend less in another."

Though Strunk did not find a correlation between more restrictive contracts and student test scores, she argues that the trade-offs do affect students.

"Reducing or eliminating things like counselors or textbooks can hit kids really hard," she said.